By Tom Luongo - August 21, 2023

Give me life, give me pain, give me myself again - Tori Amos, “Little Earthquakes”

So, the story of Oliver Anthony and his song, “Rich Men North of Richmond” just keeps getting better and better. Oliver’s folk anthem for what Gary North used to call “The Remnant” and what Ron Paul deemed “The Silent Majority” has not just jumped containment it’s become a living, breathing thing.

And I can’t overstate how important this moment is. It’s such a simple thing, his song. And yet, simple truths speak volumes.

After making it to the top of the streaming charts at both Spotify and Apple Music, Oliver becomes a bona fide folk hero by turning down the music industry’s fundamentally dirty money. $8 million of it.

He knows that money comes with an awful lot of strings; strings that would be the kind of temptations that led him to write the music he did in the first place.

Not only does he turn them down, he all but spits on their offer. Because their offer was, in his words, “Bullshit Pay.” Even if he doesn’t care about the money, he’s worth 10 times that now thanks to spitting in their face.

It’s a moment where someone finally says, “It ain’t about the money.”

It’s about “people like me and people like you.”

Ironically, when you turn down the big money, when you don’t sell out, that’s when the real money gets made, especially in this age of crowdfunding and the ability of content creators to bypass the corporate gatekeepers.

If you have any doubts about this, if your emotional armor goes up and you immediately start looking for the man behind the curtain laying AstroTurf, I’m going to do something I never do… I’m linking to *shudder* a Facebook page, so you can read this man’s story yourself.

Here’s the link. Stop reading my pablum and read his tale, because it’s the kind of thing that speaks directly to why he turned the money down.

The pay comes from hearing the stories, feeling the pain and anguish of people moved by his music.

That’s real capital. People are happy to spend money on real things that give them value. They feel honored to support someone who speaks for them. And with that comes the responsibility to keep it as real as possible, because tomorrow is another struggle.

Ask me how I know this…

Authenticity Is the Real Coin of the Realm

One of the very first blog posts I published on Gold Goats ‘n Guns back in 2016 was called “The Authenticity Gap.” There I identified why the Millennials would be the generation that would betray the establishment and hand Trump the Presidency over Hillary Clinton.

This is a generation more aware of how screwed they are than mine was. And while their political identity is in flux– reared on diet of Comedy Central snark as a coping mechanism for the lying — they have a near obsession with natural things – real fiber clothing, lumberjack fashion, farm-to-table food choices, etc.

They’ve turned their Masters of Social Justice into Ph.D’s in Cocktails, Cappuccinos and Craft Beers… and bless their hearts. I can finally get a good whiskey sour when I visit my friends in South Florida.

At least now some of them are entrepreneurs.

Their cultural identity is one big cry for authenticity in a sea of smarm. Hillary’s authenticity gap is simply too big for many millennials to square with that value system.

And that’s exactly what happened. Many of them stayed home and some, guys like Oliver Anthony, voted for Trump. No political analyst had guys like him modeled in 2016.

He was 23 working double-shifts in a paper mill.

Now let’s come back to the present. Read that article again, sub out “Hillary” for the entire “Davos establishment post-COVID.” And tell me the same issues are not about to play themselves out again.

The DNC is currently at war with . . .

[SNIP]