Jason Aldean, the man who is somehow still headlining y'all's beloved Boots and Hearts this year, is pretty proudly right-wing. About a year ago, he made headlines with the music video for "Try That in a Small Town" — a single from his 2023 album, Highway Desperado — which seemed to quite blatantly be "promoting violence," as Sheryl Crow put it.
Between threatening lyrics about guns being grandfathered in, protest footage, and the country artist performing in front of the reported site of a 1933 lynching, the music video got pulled from CMT's video rotation after only two days. Aldean's fellow Republicans proceeded to push the song to debut at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, while he complained about cancel culture and commended country music fans for rallying like he'd never seen before.
The singer-songwriter has now put out another "owning the Libs" rallying cry, dedicating "Try That in a Small Town" to Donald Trump at his concert in Nashville, TN, following the former president's assassination attempt on Saturday (July 13).
While performing at the Bridgestone Arena moments after the shooting at Trump's campaign event in Butler, PA — which, for the record, had a population of 13,176 in the 2022 census, probably qualifying it as a small town to at least some people — Aldean introduced the conservative-beloved hit by saying, "President Trump's a friend of mine so I want to send this next song out to him."
Of the upcoming US presidential election, Aldean added, "We all know what's going to happen come November, so it's all good. Just goes to show you there's a lot of bullshit in the world, and that's kind of what this song right here was about, so this one goes out to the pres."
This isn't the first time the musician has spoken out on former president Trump's behalf. Back in May, Aldean wanted to know what the convicted felon potentially facing actual consequences meant for "the rest of us." He wrote on Instagram, "Scary times in our country right now, man."
Yeah, I'll say.