Definitely not defending Oliver Anthony because aside from this song, don’t know donkey about him but take this for what it’s worth as a die hard libertarian in the rural south who has also lived in urban areas.
I get how the song is appealing to actual working class people in the south. “Your dollar ain’t shit,” “overtime hours for bullshit pay,” applies to a lot of living conditions here. Employers want college degrees in these areas for $12-15 an hour. Normal people that haven’t went to trade school or college because they can’t afford it, got pregnant, had to help with bills, etc. have very slim chances of getting one.
There are legitimately people in this area who have always been on top, that now are making 80k+ per year, who still draw food stamps and have medical cards. So yeah, if you’re a normal Joe trying to be honest, it sucks dick. Because you spend 60+ hours of your week preparing to/teaching kids who are taught from birth that school is stupid and will never do anything for them, get paid $30k a year, as a good job, and your take home is less than 2000 a month. Houses start at 200k, milk is $5 a gal, gas $3.50, groceries are at an all time high because of profit margins, I get why it resonates with working class people here. If you aren’t actively gaming the system (the Welfare hating as critics of the song are calling it) the way 40% of the area does, you’re shit out of luck.
Again, don’t know anything about the dude, but know a lot about the rural south, and they’re underpaid, overworked, and the biggest victims of the government in this country because the government actively keeps a majority of them in learned helplessness and the remainder can’t get ahead because with everyone having a medical card or EBT, jobs assume they don’t have to pay shit.
If you don’t see a problem with:
30-50% of the south being on food stamps and 40% of the south being obese, idk what to tell you man that’s just maths.
There is a large percentage of people on food stamps who are healthy, able bodied adults who actively choose to not work and or abuse the safety net. & those people still end up making enough to be obese making those decisions while making the system bogged down to the point where some actually disabled people, with their legs blown off or who cannot process information on the same level because they are mentally deficit, cannot get their disability or someone to take care of them.
Obesity is not a disability. It’s either a symptom or a decision.