Move over, Jason Aldean. Conservatives and right-wing personalities have chosen their newest country music artist to uplift and amplify. The song "Rich Men North of Richmond" from an unknown Virginia musician, Oliver Anthony, went viral on YouTube after it was first posted last week. Anthony now has 500 thousand followers on Instagram and 300 thousand on Twitter (now known as X) with tens of millions of views on videos posted across all social media accounts.
Three of Anthony's songs, including "Rich Men North of Richmond," currently hold the top three spots on the U.S. iTunes charts, bumping another conservative favorite and rallying cry: Jason Aldean's dog whistle-laden "Try That In A Small Town." The song has garnered more than nine million views in less than a week. The song's lyrics address the difficulties of working-class struggle, taxes, social welfare systems and suicide rates. Anthony sings controversially: "Lord, we got folks in the street, ain't got nothin' to eat / And the obese milkin' welfare." He even alludes to Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking illegalities.
