The cultural poison spreads

Leftwing insanity has been oozing into the country music business for years. Jeff Goldstein ponders the latest infusion of poison: "The Audacity of Woke." 

In a somewhat surreal moment at the Country Music Awards last week, co-host Kelsea Ballerini joined with several drag performers to belt out a campy version of her single, “If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Down Too),” a protest anthem taking aim at Tennessee laws crafted to prevent both child mutilation and the potential arrested development and bone loss often caused by hormone therapy for “transitioning” youth considered too young to consent to such procedures. The performance was of course steeped in Queerness, both in the pretend “oppression” of performers literally center stage at a televised awards show, and in the academic sense, where drag serves as a kind of postmodern Harlequin dance to usher pre-initiates into Queer theory more broadly. Choreographed to confront its audience, the unspoken subtext of the number was that it’s time for you to pick a side — and you had better be careful which side you pick.