In a 26 July 2023 article for the right-wing publication American Greatness, Edward Ring writes, “For every American who watched statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, and countless other symbols of our heritage spat on, vandalized, toppled and smashed, this song is a primal scream.”

With this one statement, Ring proves that the song’s critics are correct about the song.

First, he makes the wild claim that “statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin” have been “spat on, vandalized, toppled and smashed.”

Gee, that must be some of the “news corporate media won’t tell you” that American Greatness mentions on its homepage, because I do not recall such statues being attacked.

However, I do recall other statues being “spat on, vandalized, toppled and smashed.” Those particular statues are the “countless other symbols of our heritage” that Edward Ring mentions – namely the symbols of the 19th-Century Confederacy.

Regarding the song’s intended message, American activist Charlotte Clymer gives this observation:

“Listen, y’all, this isn’t supposed to be literal. We all sense that. Mr. Aldean is not really attempting to describe actual “small town” life. He’s trying to pander to a specific feeling of a particular demographic that happily codes their bigotry with information shortcuts.

‘Small town’ does not mean a place that is literally small; it’s a symbol of a passed society for which Mr. Aldean and like-minded folks openly pine. It’s openly fantasizing for a time in which there was no question that folks who look like Mr. Aldean called all the shots.”

The song blatantly declares that people in a small town will physically harm someone who harms the American flag:

“Stomp on the flag and light it up
Yeah, ya think you’re tough
Well, try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won’t take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don’t
Try that in a small town”

In the 1989 case of Texas v. Johnson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that harming the American flag is a form of political speech protected by the 1st Amendment.

Thus, when Jason Aldean sings “Try That In A Small Town”, he is saying that residents of small towns will readily violate a person’s constitutional rights.

The song continues with this “gem”:

“Got a gun that my granddad gave me
They say one day they’re gonna round up
Well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck”

The unidentified “They” must be the National Rifle Association. Who else would promote such fearmongering?

Does Jason Aldean really believe that the U.S. government wants to take away granddad’s old hunting rifle?

Promoting a false alarm in the name of small-town residents is disgusting at best.

The song concludes with a stanza that makes the song all white:

“Full of good ol’ boys, raised up right
If you’re looking for a fight
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town”

Vocabulary.com defines “good ole boy” this way:

“A white male Southerner with an unpretentious convivial manner and conservative or intolerant attitudes and a strong sense of fellowship with and loyalty to other members of his peer group”

The expression “good ol’ boys” was popularized by the theme song of the American TV series The Dukes of Hazzard that aired from 26 January 1979 to 08 February 1985.

In the show, the “good ol’ boys” drive a race car named the General Lee that has the Confederate flag painted on its roof. Hence, the show’s “good ol’ boys” glorify the 19th-Century Confederacy.

So, it isn’t a wild stretch to interpret “good ol’ boys” as code for white men who think that there was nothing bad about the 19th-Century Confederacy.

That defenders of Aldean’s song might be a wee bit racist is seen in this 24 July 2023 report by NBC News:

“Last week Country Music Television, which initially aired the video, pulled it from rotation. But after Aldean defended the music video by stating that ‘there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage,’ Stark said it was easy to prove him wrong.

In a TikTok video that’s gotten at least 1.5 million views, Stark found that two of the clips in the video came from stock footage. One showed a woman flipping off police at a labor day event in Germany and another was a commercial stock clip of a molotov cocktail. . .

NBC News also found stock clips of a protest in Montreal, Canada, and a protest in Kyiv, Ukraine. The Montreal clip does not have a date nor does it have context for the cause behind protest.

The Ukraine clip appears to be from a 2013 protest in downtown Kyiv, which was in opposition to the former president’s refusal to sign an agreement that would have aligned the country with the European Union.”

Jason Aldean doesn’t just misrepresent events in the USA with video clips from outside the USA, he also misrepresents his background. In a Tweet dated 18 July 2023, he writes, “Try That In A Small Town, for me, refers to the feeling of a community that I had growing up.”

The problem with Aldean’s statement is that he didn’t grow up in a small town. He was born and raised in Macon, Georgia, which had a population of more than 100,000 when he was born in 1977.

Law Insider defines small town as “a town in the State with a population of less than 5,000 at the date of the most recent U.S. Census Bureau decennial census.”

Charlotte Clymer writes, “So, essentially, with Mr. Aldean, what we have here is a prep school dilettante who was raised in a big city, singing a song he didn’t write about an experience he never had, accompanied with a music video of which much of the footage was filmed in Canada.”

Clymer may be correct about Aldean, but that isn’t stopping him from gaining wealth through the song “Try That In A Small Town”, which is his goal. So, why should he stop singing that particular song?

If Billy Ocean can have a rebel yell, then why can’t Jason Aldean have a primal scream? The latter might help Aldean to gain the whole world.