The Myth Of Country Music's Two-Party System

It's election day; big yikes. Vote, of course — be the annoying person asking your friends and family if they voted, wear your sticker, share all voting info widely because it's not everything but it is something. I hope you've all got something fun planned and can stay as far away from breathless returns coverage as possible — I'm already exhausted by all of it (especially by the Texas voyeurism) and scared about the "country music vibe shift" pieces should the predicted blue wave not hit. (Even if it does, I'll put money on a "real music is back like the Democrats to save us from 'Choosin' Texas'"-type take.) 

Here at Don't Rock The Inbox, we've long since been trying to buck the two-party system of country music: the widely accepted conceit that there is Good Country (Dolly, Johnny, Willie and now Jason and Tyler) and Bad Country (Music Row), and that for those with taste, those two sectors are divided by an intractable combination of aesthetic and politic — the former acceptable and even aspirational, the latter abhorrent. Not to become the country critic version of the dreaded median American voter, but rather to seek out the good music without making too many knee-jerk assumptions about the values of the artists behind it. 

A fascinating example of country music's complicated politics comes (surprise) from right here in Texas, where Tejano artist Bobby Pulido is poised to potentially (knocking on all the wood here) flip a border-district U.S. House seat that not only went for Trump by 18 points, but was specifically gerrymandered to become even more of a Republican stronghold. Tejano music and country are connected aesthetically, but perhaps more importantly, they share an audience (see my Texas Monthly piece about Midland's bilingual "Drinkin' Problem" success here). Pulido himself has several straight country tracks on his early (and most successful) albums. 

Now, he's used his music as the jumping off point for a campaign that is pointedly anti-Trump — you've probably seen mention of him campaigning at quinceañeras, stopping in for a song or two to get out the vote. 

Obviously pulling for him over his MAGA incumbent opponent (who actually beat my brilliant progressive college classmate Michelle Vallejo to get into Congress in the first place), and present one small part of how country music is (and most critically, isn't) at the ballot box today. Texas is more than Talarico v. Paxton, more than even Willie and Waylon and George — more, and I know this is maybe hardest to see, than how it votes under so much brazen voter suppression (terrified to see what kind of schemes the GOP has for today). Whether he wins or not, the success of Pulido's campaign is a testament to musical stories that don't fit neatly into boxes, political or otherwise.

Separately, convenient timing for Kacey's Tejano-tinged "mixtape"...