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Exactly this. My hard right coworker showed me this song because i complain regularly about modern conservative country, and how the old-schools of country (Cash, Hank senior, Woody Guthrie, etc) knew the struggle of the working man and would not be modern republicans. He made me listen to it thinking it was a gotcha "what do you think about this guy" and I listend a few times, read the lyrics, and my man has 2 bad lines in the song, based on the lyrics he'd be fighting for stronger social safety nets and equal rights for all after a single night in the bar with a lefty.
I don't think he even needs the night in a bar, he's already there. He's a blue collar guy from West Virginia turned to Country-Folk music and his music...well...it's the music of the American Proletariat.
He's not the Conservatives Guy and never was, he just got thrust into the spotlight because DeSantis brought him up during the debates and that resulted in an unfortunate knee jerk reaction from Liberals looking for a reason to tear him down.
We can toss around terms like "problematic" regarding his one line about welfare but denying the authenticity of everything else is foolish, it genuinely resonates with the American Working Class.
Edit:
Doubt me?
Watch this.
Or this.
Or this.
Nobody's denying the "authenticity" of the song. It's that it betrays a basic lack of understanding of the US and its problems.
Like, he complains about high taxes. If he's actually talking about working class / poor people, their taxes really aren't very high. The US does have a progressive tax system and people near the bottom aren't taxed that much. On the other hand, unlike most countries, the US also doesn't have a good safety net to help the least fortunate out. Because of that, taxes might feel like an awful burden when you're poor because you aren't getting the benefits... and then he goes on to complain about welfare... the very benefits that poor people should demand.
He (himself fat, if not obese) complains about obesity, and links it to welfare (also taking pot-shots at short people for some reason). It's not like people on welfare are eating so incredibly well that they become obese. It's that when you're poor, the system in the US makes it hard to eat nutritious food. First of all, processed food is relatively cheap, and it doesn't go bad, so it's a smart thing to buy if you're on a budget and catch it on sale. If you buy fruit and vegetables, they might go bad before you can use them. Many poor people also live in food deserts, so getting to the store to buy fresh food is very hard. If you're only working a 9-5 job and have a reasonable commute, and can easily get to a grocery store, you can afford the time to do meal planning and cook for yourself. If you're doing unpredictable shift work, and have to get around using unpredictable and slow public transit, and getting to a grocery store is an hour-long detour, it's hard to avoid unhealthy food because you can't count on being home to cook regular meals. Finding inexpensive but healthy food out in public is very hard.
On the subject of welfare / food stamps and obesity, I read recently that people having their food stamp / SNAP funds stolen is very common because SNAP only uses a basic swipe card that's easy to steal. Stealing people's SNAP money is rarely investigated, and they don't get their money back. For that reason, a lot of people on SNAP go to the store and spend all their SNAP money the moment they get it. If it's all spent, it can't be stolen. But, what can you buy that's going to last you a month until your next payment? It isn't fruits and veggies, it's canned foods, processed foods, high-sugar foods, etc.
So, yeah, he's "authentic", but he's also misinformed about the world. He's blaming welfare / welfare recipients as much as he's blaming the "rich men north of Richmond", when problem B is much, much more of an issue than problem A.
When you're working 60 hour weeks at $20 an hour to gross $4,800 a month but your take home pay $3,300 it feels pretty high.
He complains about welfare abuse, not welfare itself. It's a key distinction.
I don't hear it that way at all.
You're also skipping over all of the other messages in the lyrics to hyperfocus on the one you disagree with so that you can dismiss the whole thing. Where are you on the mental health crisis, corrupt politicians, and holding the lower class down? Because those messages are ALSO in there.
Is there a single line in his song where he clarifies that he only cares about welfare abuse and that most people getting welfare are just fine? As far as I can tell, his only mention of welfare is in the context of welfare abuse -- which is really only a small problem, but is consistently blown out of proportion by right-wingers who want people to blame poor people for their problems, not rich people.
The stuff I'm talking about takes up more than half the song, unless you count the repeated chorus. Corrupt politicians? Do you mean the conspiracy theory that most of them are having sex with minors? Because yep, he went there too.