After belting out his complaints about welfare recipients eating fudge rounds and making QAnon-adjacent allegations about politicians sex trafficking children, conservative darling Oliver Anthony has come under fire from his right-wing fan base for allegedly faking his accent.
Mr Anthony's song Rich Men North of Richmond — a reference to politicians living in Washington DC — became a viral hit among conservative audiences last week. After right-wing commenters on social media praised it for its raw and "real" messaging, they seem to have turned on Mr Anthony after a video emerged showing his "real" accent is not a twangy Appalachian one.
Infuriating conservatives even further is the fact that Mr Anthony also praised diversity as the US's main strength.
During a Fox News interview, Mr Anthony — who grew up in North Carolina — speaks with what sounds like a typical American accent.
“I mean, we are the melting pot of the world,” Mr Anthony told the interviewer in the video, “and that’s what makes us strong, is our diversity, and we need to learn to harness that and appreciate it, and not use it as a political tool to keep everyone separate from each other you know?”
An X user, whose pinned tweet has links to videos praising a leader of the American Nazi Party called Mr Anthony an "algorithm boosted 'based' red beard hillbilly song guy" who was "faking his accent."
The user also took offence to the fact the singer said that "diversity is our strength."
And they were not the only one lashing out at Mr Anthony. One user said he was trying to "become a rich man north of Richmond," while another came to a conclusion that many of Mr Anthony's left-wing critics already voiced; that he was an industry plant meant to enrapture Republican consumers starving for conservative media.
“These companies are testing the waters to see if they can create fake Republican singers to make more money off the Republican demographic,” user LomzLomz wrote. “And it works people don't see the bigger picture there is no invisible hand of the CIA only corporate string.”
Popular Twitter commenter KrangTNelson found the conservatives' swift reversal entertaining.
"Conservatives got a hold of a clip of the astroturfed country song guy saying America is a 'melting pot' and now he's f****** cancelled. Also potentially a CIA agent," they wrote.
Another user pointed out how conservatives insisting there was nothing inherently classist or racist about Mr Anthony's song immediately turned on him for not being racist enough.
“I love how they’ve spent the last couple weeks insisting there’s nothing racist about the neo-Confederate welfare queen song but the moment the singer expresses support for a racially integrated society he gets cancelled for being woke,” a user with the handle Capricoda said.
Despite the song's number 1 status on country charts that take in streaming numbers, the song is getting virtually no airplay, according to an analysis conducted by Variety Magazine.
