A Democratic Senator Defends ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’
Updated at 8:25 a.m. ET on August 28, 2023
The future of progressive politics in America just might revolve around whether someone like Chris Murphy, a U.S. senator from a prosperous New England state, can find common ground culturally and politically with a man like Oliver Anthony. Earlier this month, Anthony, a young country singer, dropped his song “Rich Men North of Richmond” into the nation’s political-cultural stew pot. A red-bearded high-school dropout, former factory hand, and virtual unknown, he strummed a guitar in the Virginia woods and sang with an urgent twang about the despair of working-class life:
I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
So I can sit out here and waste my life away
Drag back home and drown my troubles away.
His song, which became an unlikely national hit, also took jabs at “obese” welfare recipients and high taxes. christened Anthony a star; that he was an “industry plant”; divined in his song the “” of conspiracy culture. The press coverage of Anthony, and the dismissive tone on the left, would change only on Friday, when the singer released a video in which he disowned the right’s championing of his song.
