Hank Williams Jr. is revealing the Southern Strategy, making racism fashionable amongst Conservatives. A quite prescient commenter on the Huffington Post article asks,
Is it just me or has the “southern strategy” come to fruition, making racist hatred, homophobia and Islamophobia fashionable among the conservative set. What a proud achievement.
(h/t: JD)
Hank Williams Jr.: Obama Is ‘A Muslim President Who Hates Farming, Hates The Military, Hates The U.S. And We Hate Him’
Hank Williams Jr. reprised his role as a fiery anti-Obama blowhard on Friday, telling fans at a concert that the president was Muslim and anti-American.
The statement came near the end of a concert at the Iowa State Fair Grandstand. Williams Jr.’s comments were first reported in a review by Des Moines Register reporter Joe Lawler.
According to Lawler, the show was relatively free of politics until the end, when Williams Jr. made the following claims: “We’ve got a Muslim president who hates farming, hates the military, hates the U.S. and we hate him!”
The comments were apparently met with applause and loud cheers.
Williams Jr. made waves in October 2011, when he appeared on “Fox and Friends” and likened the president to Hitler.
That statement resulted in ESPN yanking Williams Jr.’s opening song from “Monday Night Football,” where the country star’s song had played for over two decades.
Though he later said his “Fox and Friends” comments were “misunderstood,” Williams Jr. has continued to be outspoken in his dislike of Obama. He also released a song entitled “Keep the Change,” in which he derides not only the president but also Fox, who he describes as “twisting [his words] all around.”
In a July 2012 interview with Rolling Stone, Williams Jr. doubled down on his particularly blunt brand of criticism of the Obama administration.
“We’ve got a President that does a call to the Koran or Mecca or whatever,” he told the magazine. When asked if he believed Obama hated America, Williams Jr. responded, “I don’t know about that but it’s kind of obvious. I guess when you take a tour, a world tour, to apologize for America.”
A number of entertainers have come out in support of Obama and/or against the Romney-Ryan ticket. The Silversun Pickups issued a strongly worded cease-and-desist letter to Romney when it was revealed that the campaign had played one of their songs. The campaign responded by saying it was within its legal rights in playing “Panic Switch” and added that the song was not among those usually played and would not be used again.
Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine wrote a takedown of Rep. Paul Ryan. Ryan had previously said that Rage was his favorite band. In his op-ed, Morello wrote that Ryan represented “the embodiment of the machine our music rages against.”
But Williams Jr. is not alone in the entertainment world. Musician Ted Nugent has made a cottage industry out of criticizing Obama, most recently claiming that the president “represents everything bad about humanity.” Nugent was investigated by the Secret Service after he made the bizarre claim that a second Obama victory would result in the singer either being “dead or in jail.”
