Kid Rock Threw the Party. MAGA Faithful Brought the Joy, Rage and Smirnoff Ice.

A music festival headlined by the pro-Trump musician offered a snapshot of a maturing American subculture, with a mash-up of hedonism, rebellion and beer-guzzling pursuit of happiness.

Alan Jeanetti, a 73-year-old retired barber, was tailgating with friends before Rock the Country, a touring music festival headlined by the pro-Trump musician Kid Rock. Mr. Jeanetti’s head was wrapped in a star-spangled bandanna. His T-shirt declared, “I Don’t Care.”

Mr. Jeanetti actually cares about many things, including the toll that his political leanings have taken on his personal life. “I have lost so many friends because I was a Trump lover,” he said. “I wouldn’t do that to them.”

On this broiling July day in Anderson, S.C., however, Mr. Jeanetti had a safe space. A tribe. All around him were fellow fans of former President Donald J. Trump, many with big trucks lining the green fields around the outdoor concert venue. Trump flags fluttered above R.V.s and tents, alongside American flags and a few of the Confederate variety.

Some 22,500 people would come on this first day of the two-day festival, according to the local sheriff’s office, drawn by Kid Rock and an abundance of country performers. “It’s going to be another Woodstock One,” Mr. Jeanetti said.
Starting in April in Gonzales, La., and stopping in six other midsize Southern cities through late July, Rock the Country offered a vision of the MAGA movement in pure party mode.

The shows felt like Trump rallies without the former president, unburdened by policy talk, speeches from lesser-known G.O.P. players, and the buzz-kill tendencies of Mr. Trump himself, who tends to noodle at the lectern like a jam-band soloist.

What remained was a snapshot of a maturing American subculture, with unwritten conventions rivaling those of Deadheads or Swifties, and a dizzying mash-up of hedonism and piety, angry rebellion and beer-guzzling pursuit of happiness.

It was also more evidence that Kid Rock, the 53-year-old Michigan entertainer and festival co-owner whose real name is Robert James Ritchie, has emerged as a chief cultural standard-bearer of Trumpism. At the Republican National Convention in July, Mr. Ritchie, who says he golfs regularly with Mr. Trump, performed shortly before the former president’s speech accepting the nomination, leading the crowd in chants of “Fight! Fight!” and setting a defiantly salty tone with his anthem, “American Bad Ass.”

In a phone interview last week, Mr. Ritchie said that Rock the Country had been designed to appeal to the conservative demographic that had made TV shows like “Duck Dynasty” and “Yellowstone” so popular.

Mr. Ritchie, who began his career as a rather apolitical party rapper, has not only ridden the wave of working-class anger that propels the MAGA movement, but he has also done much to shape it. His 2023 protest of Bud Light, after the beer brand partnered with a transgender influencer, sent its sales plummeting.

After the November election, Mr. Ritchie said, he would try to “lower the tone” politically, “and go back to trying to make good music that anybody can enjoy.” But for now, he said, “I’m going to go hard in the paint through this election for my guy, because I believe in his policies.”

At one point in the conversation, he was asked about prominent conservatives who have raised doubts about Mr. Trump’s fitness for office. Mr. Ritchie, chuckling, referred to those doubters with a homophobic slur; two days later, he texted The New York Times to note that his comment was a line from the 1982 film “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

In South Carolina, Kid Rock was the biggest act on the first day of the festival, with the country star Jason Aldean headlining on the second. By late afternoon on Day 1, thousands of people — young and old, overwhelmingly white — had crowded into the open field in front of the stage. Young women clopped across the grass in cherry-red cowgirl boots and Daisy Dukes. Men tried to outdo each other with T-shirts with politically incorrect remarks (“Taxes are Gay”; “Ammosexual”; “I’m voting CONVICTED FELON 2024”).

It had been five days since President Biden announced he would not seek re-election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee — too soon, it seemed, for the rollout of anti-Harris shirts.

It had also been two weeks since a gunman had tried to assassinate Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania, and one shirt seemed to set the tone more than others: It showed Mr. Trump raising his middle fingers, with the words “YOU MISSED,” followed by an expletive.
The conservative movement once proudly defined itself in opposition to the recreational drug use of the leftist counterculture. At Rock the Country, a cannabis tent did a brisk business in prerolled joints and Delta-9 space pops. Another company sold gummies containing a “proprietary mushroom and nootropics” blend, the packaging said, for a “mind-bending experience.” Bud Light was the conspicuous sponsor of a two-story outdoor bar.

A lighting rig facing the stage had been designed, an organizer told the crowd, to resemble a cross, a reminder that “the true hope for the United States is Jesus Christ.”

Taking it all in from a picnic table were Margie Guden, 58, a supervisor at a fast-food restaurant from Zirconia, N.C., and her husband William, 62, who works at a farm supply store. “There’s no Biden fans here,” Ms. Guden said. “Fantastic!”

The Gudens said they identified with neither political party. They said they would like to see everyone currently in office voted out, and Mr. Trump voted in to cleanse a corrupt system. They also thought he could rein in inflation

There ain’t no such thing as balancing a budget no more, when you go to work and you’re making, let’s say, $10 to $15 an hour, and it costs you $22 an hour to live where you are,” Mr. Guden said. “How do you make up and adjust for that cost of living? Credit card.”

Mr. Jeanetti, a North Carolina resident, spoke over a happy din that mounted as the parking lot filled and his friends sipped from cans of Smirnoff Ice.

Mr. Trump, he said, bore some responsibility for the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. But Mr. Jeanetti added that practical issues took precedence when it came to his vote: “The bottom line is called the economy.”

Faith in Mr. Trump seemed to paper over some serious disagreements among the concertgoers. Mr. Jeanetti said he was staunchly in favor of abortion rights. “I grew up in the ’70s,” he said. “Who the hell are you to say I have to have this baby?”

But a few yards away, Jeremy Morey, 47, a plumber from Boyne Falls, Mich., said he believed that liberals’ support for abortion was proof they had aligned themselves with satanic forces when there were “actual angels and demons fighting right now for the soul of this country.”

Others were split on whether the MAGA movement was on the cusp of open rebellion. Edwin Poteet Black Jr., a longtime Kid Rock fan from Michigan with convictions for robbery, assaulting a police officer and other crimes, said that it was time for conservatives to rise up in a civil war against liberals. “We are to the point our forefathers would have already been out in the streets, shooting,” said Mr. Black, whose grandson had given him tickets to the festival for his 60th birthday.

Through the spring and summer, the Rock the Country shows mixed and matched performers, but most were from the world of country — a genre wide enough to encompass all manner of politics, both “rednecks and bluenecks,” as the writer Chris Willman once put it, but one that often aligns with conservative ideals

In South Carolina, warm-up acts for Kid Rock repurposed recent rock sounds, from grunge to metal. But they mostly stuck to traditional country themes: patriotism, love and lust, God and family, trucks and beer.

Elvie Shane, a singer-songwriter from Kentucky, kicked off the show with “Forgotten Man,” a booming song about the pride and travails of the working life that segued into a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” In between songs, he sounded a rare note of concern about the way Americans seemed to have turned on each other.

“I feel like we’re just so divided these days. I know y’all ain’t,” he said with a laugh that seemed to acknowledge the crowd’s unified politics. He encouraged them to reach out to friends or family who might be on the other side of the political divide. “If you love them, you be the bigger man — you make the phone call and say, ‘Hey look, I know we disagree. But I still love you.

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A woman wearing patriotic clothes and a hat rides a mechanical bull. A man cheers her on from the sideline.
A mechanical bull at Kid Rock’s Rock the Country festival in Anderson, S.C., in July.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times
Kid Rock Threw the Party. MAGA Faithful Brought the Joy, Rage and Smirnoff Ice.
A music festival headlined by the pro-Trump musician offered a snapshot of a maturing American subculture, with a mash-up of hedonism, rebellion and beer-guzzling pursuit of happiness.

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Richard Fausset
By Richard Fausset
Reporting from Anderson, S.C.

Aug. 11, 2024
Alan Jeanetti, a 73-year-old retired barber, was tailgating with friends before Rock the Country, a touring music festival headlined by the pro-Trump musician Kid Rock. Mr. Jeanetti’s head was wrapped in a star-spangled bandanna. His T-shirt declared, “I Don’t Care.”

Mr. Jeanetti actually cares about many things, including the toll that his political leanings have taken on his personal life. “I have lost so many friends because I was a Trump lover,” he said. “I wouldn’t do that to them.”

On this broiling July day in Anderson, S.C., however, Mr. Jeanetti had a safe space. A tribe. All around him were fellow fans of former President Donald J. Trump, many with big trucks lining the green fields around the outdoor concert venue. Trump flags fluttered above R.V.s and tents, alongside American flags and a few of the Confederate variety.

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Some 22,500 people would come on this first day of the two-day festival, according to the local sheriff’s office, drawn by Kid Rock and an abundance of country performers. “It’s going to be another Woodstock One,” Mr. Jeanetti said.

ImagePeople standing in a muddy field. On the ground is one white cowboy boot and a can of beer.
The crowd waiting for Kid Rock’s performance, which was delayed by rain.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times
Image
A crowd cheers on, facing the stage. In the foreground, a man and woman kiss.
Some 22,500 people would come on this first day of the two-day festival, according to the local sheriff’s office.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times
Starting in April in Gonzales, La., and stopping in six other midsize Southern cities through late July, Rock the Country offered a vision of the MAGA movement in pure party mode.

The shows felt like Trump rallies without the former president, unburdened by policy talk, speeches from lesser-known G.O.P. players, and the buzz-kill tendencies of Mr. Trump himself, who tends to noodle at the lectern like a jam-band soloist.

ADVERTISEMENT

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

What remained was a snapshot of a maturing American subculture, with unwritten conventions rivaling those of Deadheads or Swifties, and a dizzying mash-up of hedonism and piety, angry rebellion and beer-guzzling pursuit of happiness.

It was also more evidence that Kid Rock, the 53-year-old Michigan entertainer and festival co-owner whose real name is Robert James Ritchie, has emerged as a chief cultural standard-bearer of Trumpism. At the Republican National Convention in July, Mr. Ritchie, who says he golfs regularly with Mr. Trump, performed shortly before the former president’s speech accepting the nomination, leading the crowd in chants of “Fight! Fight!” and setting a defiantly salty tone with his anthem, “American Bad Ass.”

In a phone interview last week, Mr. Ritchie said that Rock the Country had been designed to appeal to the conservative demographic that had made TV shows like “Duck Dynasty” and “Yellowstone” so popular.

Image
A crowd of people at nighttime. In the background is a cross in bright lights.
Rock the Country is a touring music festival headlined by the pro-Trump musician Kid Rock.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times
Image
A concertgoer takes a photo of a video displaying Donald Trump.
A video of Donald Trump played during the show. “Let’s make America rock again,” Mr. Trump said in the video.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times
Mr. Ritchie, who began his career as a rather apolitical party rapper, has not only ridden the wave of working-class anger that propels the MAGA movement, but he has also done much to shape it. His 2023 protest of Bud Light, after the beer brand partnered with a transgender influencer, sent its sales plummeting.

After the November election, Mr. Ritchie said, he would try to “lower the tone” politically, “and go back to trying to make good music that anybody can enjoy.” But for now, he said, “I’m going to go hard in the paint through this election for my guy, because I believe in his policies.”

At one point in the conversation, he was asked about prominent conservatives who have raised doubts about Mr. Trump’s fitness for office. Mr. Ritchie, chuckling, referred to those doubters with a homophobic slur; two days later, he texted The New York Times to note that his comment was a line from the 1982 film “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

ADVERTISEMENT

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

In South Carolina, Kid Rock was the biggest act on the first day of the festival, with the country star Jason Aldean headlining on the second. By late afternoon on Day 1, thousands of people — young and old, overwhelmingly white — had crowded into the open field in front of the stage. Young women clopped across the grass in cherry-red cowgirl boots and Daisy Dukes. Men tried to outdo each other with T-shirts with politically incorrect remarks (“Taxes are Gay”; “Ammosexual”; “I’m voting CONVICTED FELON 2024”).

It had been five days since President Biden announced he would not seek re-election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee — too soon, it seemed, for the rollout of anti-Harris shirts.

Image
Stands with T-shirts and other merchandise, with people standing in front of them.
A merchandise table at the Rock the Country festival.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times
Image
People waiting in the rain for Kid Rock’s performance. A woman looking down at her phone is wearing a cowboy hat that says, “I’m voting for the felon 2024.”
Through the spring and summer, the Rock the Country shows mixed and matched performers, but most were from the world of country.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times
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It had also been two weeks since a gunman had tried to assassinate Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania, and one shirt seemed to set the tone more than others: It showed Mr. Trump raising his middle fingers, with the words “YOU MISSED,” followed by an expletive.

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The conservative movement once proudly defined itself in opposition to the recreational drug use of the leftist counterculture. At Rock the Country, a cannabis tent did a brisk business in prerolled joints and Delta-9 space pops. Another company sold gummies containing a “proprietary mushroom and nootropics” blend, the packaging said, for a “mind-bending experience.” Bud Light was the conspicuous sponsor of a two-story outdoor bar.

A lighting rig facing the stage had been designed, an organizer told the crowd, to resemble a cross, a reminder that “the true hope for the United States is Jesus Christ.”

Taking it all in from a picnic table were Margie Guden, 58, a supervisor at a fast-food restaurant from Zirconia, N.C., and her husband William, 62, who works at a farm supply store. “There’s no Biden fans here,” Ms. Guden said. “Fantastic!”

ADVERTISEMENT

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

The Gudens said they identified with neither political party. They said they would like to see everyone currently in office voted out, and Mr. Trump voted in to cleanse a corrupt system. They also thought he could rein in inflation.

Image
Several women, wearing Daisy Dukes, are in the foreground playing corn hole. On the other side of them are men in patriotic T-shirts.
Attendees playing corn hole at the festival.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times
Image
A woman tries on a cowboy hat that says Trump 2024 and looks at her reflection in a mirror.
Trump hats for sale.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times
“There ain’t no such thing as balancing a budget no more, when you go to work and you’re making, let’s say, $10 to $15 an hour, and it costs you $22 an hour to live where you are,” Mr. Guden said. “How do you make up and adjust for that cost of living? Credit card.”

ADVERTISEMENT

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Mr. Jeanetti, a North Carolina resident, spoke over a happy din that mounted as the parking lot filled and his friends sipped from cans of Smirnoff Ice.

Mr. Trump, he said, bore some responsibility for the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. But Mr. Jeanetti added that practical issues took precedence when it came to his vote: “The bottom line is called the economy.”

Faith in Mr. Trump seemed to paper over some serious disagreements among the concertgoers. Mr. Jeanetti said he was staunchly in favor of abortion rights. “I grew up in the ’70s,” he said. “Who the hell are you to say I have to have this baby?”

But a few yards away, Jeremy Morey, 47, a plumber from Boyne Falls, Mich., said he believed that liberals’ support for abortion was proof they had aligned themselves with satanic forces when there were “actual angels and demons fighting right now for the soul of this country.”

ADVERTISEMENT

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Others were split on whether the MAGA movement was on the cusp of open rebellion. Edwin Poteet Black Jr., a longtime Kid Rock fan from Michigan with convictions for robbery, assaulting a police officer and other crimes, said that it was time for conservatives to rise up in a civil war against liberals. “We are to the point our forefathers would have already been out in the streets, shooting,” said Mr. Black, whose grandson had given him tickets to the festival for his 60th birthday.

Image
A T-shirt of Mr. Trump with his fist in the air blows in the wind.
Starting in April and going through late July, Rock the Country offered a vision of the MAGA movement in pure party mode.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times
Image
A man wearing a shirt that says “I Don’t Care” and an American flag bandanna stands in an outdoor parking lot.
Alan Jeanetti actually cares about many things, including the toll that his political leanings have taken on his personal life. Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times
Through the spring and summer, the Rock the Country shows mixed and matched performers, but most were from the world of country — a genre wide enough to encompass all manner of politics, both “rednecks and bluenecks,” as the writer Chris Willman once put it, but one that often aligns with conservative ideals.

ADVERTISEMENT

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

In South Carolina, warm-up acts for Kid Rock repurposed recent rock sounds, from grunge to metal. But they mostly stuck to traditional country themes: patriotism, love and lust, God and family, trucks and beer.

Elvie Shane, a singer-songwriter from Kentucky, kicked off the show with “Forgotten Man,” a booming song about the pride and travails of the working life that segued into a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” In between songs, he sounded a rare note of concern about the way Americans seemed to have turned on each other.

“I feel like we’re just so divided these days. I know y’all ain’t,” he said with a laugh that seemed to acknowledge the crowd’s unified politics. He encouraged them to reach out to friends or family who might be on the other side of the political divide. “If you love them, you be the bigger man — you make the phone call and say, ‘Hey look, I know we disagree. But I still love you.’”

Image
The A crowd of people praying with their heads down.
Before Kid Rock’s set, a festival organizer took the stage and asked the fans to join him in prayer.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times
Image
Kid Rock onstage, with fireworks behind the stage. A crowd of people are watching in the foreground.
Kid Rock performing at the Rock the Country festival.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times
Before Kid Rock’s set, Shane Quick, one of the festival organizers, took the stage and asked the fans to join him in prayer. He thanked God for the military, the police, barbecue and Southeastern Conference football. “Dear God,” he said, “we thank you that just a few days ago, you kept the future president Donald Trump safe from the assassination attempt.”

The crowd went wild. Moments later, Kid Rock took the stage, flanked by dancers who gyrated on poles topped with American flags. He danced and rapped about his rough and rowdy ways. He performed his signature song, “Cowboy,” with its provocative line, “I can smell a pig from a mile away.” At one point he sang in a bluesman’s voice about the nefarious cultural imports of soccer and tofu.

Late in the show, Mr. Trump’s face hovered above the stage in a prerecorded video. He told the crowd they were the “true backbone” of the country.