How Morgan Wallen Accidentally Became A Symbol Of America’s Cultural Divide

The funny thing about the internet is that things either age like milk or fine wine; there’s rarely an in-between. A perfect example of something aging like fine wine is a 2023 TikTok created by Barstool Sports personality Jack Mac.

“A great example of how there are two Americas right now is the popularity of Morgan Wallen,” he says to open the TikTok. “In New York City, people act like Morgan Wallen is a B or C-list celebrity. But in the South, Morgan Wallen is HIM! Every Instagram story (a song from his third album, One Thing At A Time) is this right now.”

He continued, “This is not just New York City, but LA, too. I would assume people in LA just think Morgan Wallen is just that country guy. People in cities don’t understand that Morgan Wallen sells out football stadiums. It’s just crazy to me that the biggest cities in the country probably think of Morgan Wallen as a B or C-list celebrity, and then he’s one of the biggest names in the country right now. What a fascinating melting pot this place is!”

Despite being two years old, this TikTok has stuck with me. I grew up in a suburb about an hour outside of Chicago, and I know people in both camps. I know some who scoff at the idea of not only Wallen’s popularity, but see his fans as closed-minded hillbillies. Others listen to him daily and consider him to be one of their favorite artists, deeply relating to how his music beautifully tells stories of love, heartbreak, family, and loss. 

As someone who listens to Wallen almost as much as I listen to Taylor Swift, it’s safe to say that I’m in the latter category. I’m a sucker for sad country songs, and I truly believe that some of Wallen’s biggest haters might change their minds if they took the time to understand why so many love his music.

With his recent album, I’m The Problem, breaking records on the charts, I couldn’t help but wonder how one country singer could become the perfect symbol of America’s cultural divide. 

A Brief History of Morgan Wallen’s Controversies

Some of Wallen’s early scandals are child’s play compared to some of his later ones. In May 2020, Wallen was arrested for public intoxication and disorderly conduct at Kid Rock’s Nashville bar, but the charges were dropped in July 2020. In October 2020, he was set to perform on Saturday Night Live as the musical guest, but the invitation was rescinded after a video of him breaking COVID protocol went viral. Wallen expressed remorse for his behavior, and was welcomed back on SNL two months later, where he took part in a skit poking fun at the situation.

In February 2021, shortly after the release of his sophomore album, Dangerous: The Double Album, Wallen made headlines after he was caught saying the n-word to a friend in a leaked video. In a statement to E! News, Wallen wrote, "I'm embarrassed and sorry. I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial slur that I wish I could take back. There are no excuses to use this type of language, ever. I want to sincerely apologize for using the word. I promise to do better."

Wallen echoed a similar sentiment in an Instagram video less than two weeks later, apologizing for his actions and asking fans to stop defending him. In part, he said, "Obviously, the natural thing to do is to apologize further, and continue to apologize, but because you got caught, and that's not what I wanted to do. I let so many people down who mean a lot to me and have given so much to me, and it's just not fair. I let my parents down, and they're the furthest thing from the person in that video. I let my son down. And I'm not OK with that."

He also admitted to being on a 72-hour bender when he used the racial slur, and accepted invitations from Black organizations to further educate himself on issues related to race, and thanked these organizations for showing him grace and kindness. The scandal halted Wallen’s career for a few months; his songs were pulled from the radio, he was suspended from his label, and he spent some time in rehab. A few months after the incident, he was interviewed by Michael Strahan of Good Morning America. When Strahan asked Wallen why he used the slur, he responded, "It just happened. I was around some of my friends, and we say dumb stuff together. In our minds, it's playful. That sounds ignorant, but that's really where it came from. And it's wrong."

Wallen and Strahan continued to have a conversation about the brutal history of the racial slur and how it still affects Black communities today. He also spoke about the work he’s done to atone for his actions.

Then, in April 2024, Wallen was arrested on three felony counts of reckless endangerment and one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct after throwing a chair from the rooftop of Eric Church’s Nashville bar. Wallen’s lawyers were able to reduce the charges to two counts of misdemeanor reckless endangerment. He pleaded guilty in December 2024, where the judge sentenced him to two years of probation and seven days of jail time in a DUI rehab center. Wallen has expressed remorse for his actions and has seemingly avoided going to bars or partying since the incident.

Wallen’s most recent scandal is far less offensive compared to the prior two, but that didn’t stop the internet from losing its collective mind. On March 29, Wallen appeared as the musical guest on SNL alongside host and Anora actress Mikey Madison. When Madison did the send-off at the end of the show, Wallen gave her a quick hug before whispering something to her and walking off the stage instead of staying with the rest of the cast. The move was unprecedented since musical guests usually stay on stage, and social media quickly erupted with theories as to why Wallen left, and it didn’t take long for the conversation to turn political. Wallen didn't help himself when he later took to his Instagram story to share a picture of himself waiting for his private jet, captioned, “get me to God’s country.” While some assumed the post alluded to Blake Shelton’s 2019 track, “God’s Country,” others thought it was a diss at New York City for being liberal.

One user took to X to accuse Wallen’s early exit of being a sign of his alleged bigotry, writing, “Morgan Wallen realized he had to share the stage with gay and black people and got scared.” Hundreds of posts echoed similar sentiments.

However, SNL cast members and Wallen himself insist the situation wasn’t that deep. SNL cast member Bowen Yang said, “This is the God’s honest truth: Nothing happened, and so even after it happened, we all just showed up to work the next day because it’s like, you’ve just got to move on to the next thing.” Wallen himself echoed a similar sentiment on a recent episode of Sundae Conversations with Caleb Pressley. He said that he left the stage because he was “ready to go home” and had “been there all week.”

This incident proves that the facts don’t always matter to the online voices determined to push a narrative. This continued when Wallen announced he was collaborating with pop singer Tate McRae.

Morgan Wallen, Tate McRae, And The Collab That Broke The Internet

Popular artists have worked together since the dawn of the music industry, but few have created waves quite like Wallen collaborating with pop singer Tate McRae on his latest duet, “What I Want.” 

McRae first teased the collab on April 15 when she uploaded a photo of herself on her Instagram story wearing a Tennessee Volunteers (Wallen’s favorite team) jersey that said “T8” and featured Wallen’s initials. Wallen confirmed the news on Instagram on April 16. 

However, some of McRae’s fans didn’t wait until Wallen’s confirmation to start throwing stones. Her Instagram was suddenly flooded with comments like "I was rooting for you, we were all rooting for you! How dare you?" and "Girl, we love you pls cancel that collab with Wallen pls." X users were quick to contribute with memes criticizing McRae for the collab, accusing her of being a Republican and threatening to cancel her.

The criticisms continued after the song was released, with one TikToker claiming that Wallen "feels homophobic to listen to" (despite Wallen saying nothing negative about the LGBT community) and that the song was “boring, which is worse than bad.”

However, TikTokers seem to be in the minority, for the song went number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart shortly after its release. McRae is also killing it on the European leg of her Miss Possessive Tour, proving that no internet mob can stop her success.

Interestingly, this controversy exposed a double standard that fans place on female artists versus male artists. Post Malone has collaborated with Wallen twice, but didn’t receive backlash for working with such a “problematic” artist. Some X users were quick to point this out, but it didn’t generate nearly as much conversation as the initial controversy.

Is Morgan Wallen Trump-coded? 

Shortly after the release of I’m The Problem, publications were quick to post reviews and think pieces. While this is standard for an artist of high caliber (just think of how much discourse a new Taylor Swift album generates), it didn’t take long for many of the articles to become political. In a piece for Variety, writer Jem Aswad argues that despite Wallen never endorsing or praising any political candidate, Wallen is “Trump-coded.” 

Aswad writes, “Wallen has never publicly endorsed Trump, but he doesn’t need to: His behavior and image are indisputably MAGA-coded. His songs might be about drinking and bad decisions and being a badass — and defiance about the results of that drinking and those bad decisions and that badassery — but it’s hard to separate them from the very Trumpy, middle-finger-to-the-world spirit that his non-musical actions seem to reflect. Even the video for “I Had Some Help,” his airwaves-dominating song with Post Malone, is filled with (comical) bad behavior, drinking, pick-up trucks and American flags, and the song itself is about deflecting responsibility for bad behavior: Someone else is to blame for my current unsatisfactory circumstances, an attitude central to the appeal of MAGA and Fox News.”

So, behaving like an overgrown frat guy is Trump-coded? While I’m the first to call out men with Peter Pan Syndrome (Wallen is 32 and often behaves like he’s 19 and just got his bid at a fraternity infamous for partying hard), I wouldn’t say he's MAGA-coded. According to this logic, every man on Bravo is MAGA, which any seasoned Bravo fan can tell you is far from true.

Intentional or not, Aswad is suggesting that patriotism, country music, and country lifestyles popular in the South and Midwest are inherently MAGA, which is simply not true. Many users have taken to TikTok showing themselves at country concerts or rodeos with the caption “this in a liberal way,” proving that while most people who embrace these lifestyles are more conservative, it doesn’t have to be partisan. This is an inherently positive thing, proving that even though we’re divided as a country, there are still beautiful things that unite us. 

Another interesting tidbit is that while some country singers are open about their right-leaning political views, there are also plenty who are open about their left-leaning political views. This includes industry legends like Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, and Willie Nelson, but also includes more modern artists like Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, and Kacey Musgraves.

This rhetoric continued in reviews for I’m The Problem. In a review for Slate, music critic Carl Wilson not only missed the message of some of Wallen’s songs but also proved some of the messages that Wallen was trying to convey. In a mock-interview (where Wilson tried to drive home his narrative while his version of Wallen replied with nothing but lyrics to some of his songs), Wilson exposed his bias towards blue-collar workers.

In his song, “Come Back As A Redneck (featuring HARDY)”, Wallen and HARDY sing about their frustrations of being judged by wealthier folks. The second verse and chorus say, “I didn't choosе my raisin', and you didn't choose yours / You work in four walls, and I'm workin' 4x4s / We ain't as differеnt as you think we is / But I didn't pull up sayin', "Won't ya look at that born-rich / Fed with a silver spoon, trust fund kid" /Like you did /So when you die, I hope you come back as a redneck / I hope it sticks on you like a hell-hot sun tattoo / I hope you break your back for that barely-get-by paycheck / And when you can't, you gotta go and bloody up a buck or two / Catch the holy ghost on a pinewood bench / Drive across the county just to hook up a winch / Revel in the pride of a simple man / Maybe then you'll understand.”

Did Wilson see the song as a clever, tongue-in-cheek way of pointing out class divisions in the United States while encouraging others to be empathetic before being judgmental? Of course not. Wilson wrote, “Even though the details of the lyrics frame it as a rebuke to a rich guy in a Rolex who rolled his eyes at your 'beat-up truck,' the general tone ends up feeling as if it resentfully wishes death and suffering on all city people. It seems designed to widen gulfs, like a rant on Fox News.”

The funniest part about this is easily how Wilson exposes himself as the type of person the song is critiquing, making him seem as self-aware as Victoria Beckham thinking she grew up working class when her father drove a Rolls-Royce.

I’m The Problem also features the one song in Wallen’s entire discography that mentions politics, “Working Man’s Song.” The song details the struggles of blue collar workers and how they often feel screwed over by the system. The second verse says, “Red, blue, right, left, they still workin' us to death / And whatever's left over at the end's to the IRS / Head above water but I'm kickin' like hell / Ain't nobody lookin' out for me but myself / Ain't no gettin' out from under all of these underpaid checks.”

What’s surprising to some is that Wallen (who has the lead writing credit on the song) critiques both the right and the left, sounding more like a Ron Swanson style libertarian or moderate instead of the hardcore MAGA conservative that many try to paint him to be. The bipartisan tone of the song wasn't enough for critics like Wilson, who says his problem with the song is how Wallen critiques the IRS. Wilson writes, “I don’t love that you follow that with 'Whatever’s leftover at the ends to the IRS'—given that what’s currently on the table is tax cuts, mostly for the rich, while your Southern small-town neighbors are likely to see their health care cut back.”

Is Wilson aware that someone can want to keep more of the money they earned and hope tax cuts benefit the middle and lower classes? I guess holding nuanced opinions isn’t a thing in Wilson’s world, which is hilariously out-of-touch when you remember that most Americans identify as political moderates. Either way, this is proof that ideological echo chambers can make us misunderstand or demonize those we disagree with simply because it’s hard to fathom someone living or thinking a different way.

Is It Really That Deep?

As a pop culture writer, it's my job to analyze pop culture trends and what they say about our culture. In other words, a part of my job is to find the deeper meaning in pop culture events and trends, but even I have to admit that some things aren't that deep. While I believe that Wallen's rise in popularity shows that our culture is starting to embrace more classic American aesthetics, and his collab with Tate McRae says that both artists are wildly popular, not everyone agrees. TikTok user Jessie Beyer claims this collab was a “strategic alignment” from McRae’s team to show they don’t care about her progressive fans.

When I first saw this video, I couldn’t help but laugh at how much the creator demonized those she disagreed with, painting Wallen and his fans to be bigoted hillbillies. Aside from thinking that the creator of this TikTok seems like a miserable person, it reminded me of the echo chambers that Jack Mac discussed in his TikTok in 2023. Through his controversies and massive fan base, Wallen accidentally became a symbol of America’s cultural divide. How is it that one of the most popular artists in the country is beloved by half of the country and hated by the other? Unfortunately, it’s another symptom of a divided country.

The cultural divide is so deep that instead of acknowledging that some people just like listening to sad country songs, they immediately assume not only their political affiliation but also tie it to the worst stereotypes. The good news is that there are plenty of people who see through this and just want to enjoy listening to good music.

Huge musical artists often unite people. Taylor Swift unites people from all over the world with her music, but that’s not happening with Wallen. Ironically, Wallen is similar to Swift in acknowledging that heartbreak is a universal language, writing deeply relatable and emotional songs on the topic.

The saddest part is that it’s not his fault, but the fault of a culture so deeply divided and committed to living in ideological echo chambers that they see someone even remotely different from them as a horrible person. In the end, Wallen isn’t to blame; those who continue to divide our culture are. It's up to us to treat others with empathy before being judgmental. It's not much, but it might just make a difference.