Now, critics may fairly point out that country music hasn’t always been so eager to denounce those who break the law. There’s a whole subgenre of “Outlaw Country,” which can claim some of Nashville’s biggest stars from throughout the decades: Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and more.

There’s an important distinction, though, between the “outlaw” nature of Outlaw Country and the lawlessness of the BLM rioters. For the most part, the culture that shapes country music singers and fans views the criminal justice system as legitimate—even when those singers and fans find themselves on the business end of that system. Johnny Cash didn’t decry incarceration as systemically unjust; he performed live for the incarcerated.

Willie Nelson, who for decades has famously flaunted marijuana laws, still joined Toby Keith for a 2003 duet that echoes many of the same law-and-order themes as Aldean’s current single[.]

[Even if it didn’t, though, so what? Rap music has a forty-year-plus track record of glamorizing violence, gangsters, misogyny, and so on — and no one pulls that music out of rotation, especially in the last couple of decades. The consensus was that the value of their artistic perspective outweighed the supposed risk of incitement, and that consensus is correct. Aldean deserves the same consideration, especially since the critics of his song apparently never bothered to read the lyrics. — Ed]