"Rich Men North Of Richmond" is now the top song on Spotify, Apple Music, and more

Released just 11 days ago, and trumpeted by a variety of right-wing figures, “Rich Men” has had a swift and unprecedented upward trajectory, comfortably tracing a path in the grooves so recently freshened up by Jason Aldean’s “Try That In A Small Town.” (Which it has now supplanted in several spots, including the iTunes Country Chart, where Aldean reigned supreme.) The song itself exists largely as a list of grievances that Anthony lyrically whines into the ether while accompanying himself on guitar, calling out “the obese milkin’ welfare” (twice!) and suggesting that politicians are more interested in “minors on islands” than America’s own children.

It is, in other words, very much of a piece with several other surprise conservative money-makers this summer, including Jim Caviezel’s film Sound Of Freedom, which touch on a certain undercurrent (or maybe it’s just an overcurrent, at this point) of conspiratorial aggrievement seemingly on the rise in the US. (Slate notes that the song’s attack on people on welfare certainly isn’t anything new, drawing parallels to 1970s right-wing hit “Welfare Cadillac.”) If nothing else, it’s a sobering reminder that nobody ever went broke in America stoking the anger of people afraid of “a new world,” no matter what shape that new world might take.