Benny Johnson Gets Shredded for Claiming Country Music Beating Rap on the Charts Is a Win for ‘American Culture’

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MAGA Influencer Benny Johnson got absolutely shredded on social media Friday for a tweet crowing that country music was beating rap on the charts and calling it a win for “American culture.”

Johnson, who has cheerfully profited as he’s promoted many a right-wing cause célèbre and conspiracy theory over the years, is no stranger to ragebait posts. His latest attempt at a hot take highlighted the number of country music songs topping the charts recently, and made an unusual claim about the cause.

“Rap music has vanished from the top charts after USAID was defunded,” wrote Johnson. “Instead, country music has DOMINATED for 40 straight weeks. Ella Langley ‘Choosin Texas’ just shattered records for time spent at #1 – dethroning Whitney Houston & Mariah Carey.”

“American Culture is winning,” he concluded, with the requisite American flag emoji.

The entire premise of Johnson’s tweet — claiming that the cuts to USAID by the Elon Musk-run DOGE tanked rap’s chart rankings — is “total nonsense,” wrote Rolling Stone’s Nikki McCann Ramirez.

The timing somewhat coincides, Ramirez acknowledged, but to claim one caused the other only “seems plausible if you squint real hard, ignore actual streaming data, and also common sense.”

“There’s also a very blatant element of racism undergirding the whole thing,” she added; Johnson also gloated about Langley’s song “dethroning” two Black female singers, Houston and Carey.

And it isn’t even accurate, Ramirez pointed out:

While Langley has held the top spot for an impressive 40 weeks, the genre has not “disappeared” from the charts for that same amount of time, as some right wingers are claiming. On July 31, Drake, Lil Baby and Young Miami all held spots in the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100. Mac Miller, Ty Dolla $ign, Don Toliver, BabyChiefDoit, and a slew of other artists made the list.

Other commentators pointed out the glaring lack of proof for the claim rap’s popularity in the U.S. was due to USAID funding, namely that USAID “has funded programs that involve rap music, but these programs were instituted outside the U.S. and were limited in scope.”

The video itself is even more ludicrous than the caption.

“Libtards have no response to this! It’s Ella Langley,” Johnson declares right at the beginning.

Langley has spoken about her Christian faith, specifically about how it helped her through the mental health struggles that came with her rise to fame, but has not publicly taken political stances. There aren’t any notable efforts by left-leaning groups to target or criticize her either.

Even more laughably, Johnson does not seem to have listened to the very song he’s so happy to credit for blocking all those rappers from the charts.

After praising Langley for singing “real country music” that’s “wholesome” and “American,” Johnson describes her song “Choosin’ Texas” as “her song about loving Texas, and the romance between a man and a woman and the great state of Texas.”

Bless his heart, but this song has more in common with Dolly Parton’s lament in “Jolene” about the bewitching redhead she frets will “take my man” than any sort of notion of “romance” between a couple.

“Choosin’ Texas” is told from the point of view of a woman from Tennessee who is heartbroken because her man has fallen back in love with an old flame from the Lone Star State.

This is blatantly clear from the very first lyrics:

Just when I thought I got him to fall in love with Tennessee
I shoulda known better than to take him back to Abilene
I put him right back into her arms
I wasn’t a match for that kinda spark

She’s from Texas, I can tell by the way
He’s two steppin’ ’round the room
And judgin’ by the smile that’s written on his face
There’s nothin’ I can do
It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see
A cowboy always finds a way to leave
Drinkin’ Jack all by myself
He’s choosin’ Texas, I can tell

“It’s the song of the summer,” Johnson says. Well, that might be true. But it’s not a love song.

It hardly needs to be stated — correction, shouldn’t need to be stated, but we’re writing about a Benny Johnson tweet — that rap is a music genre with totally American roots, with its origins in 1970s New York City.

Rap, by the way, was certainly American enough for President Donald Trump’s “Freedom 250” concert series to celebrate America’s 250th birthday, with an original lineup that included rappers like Vanilla Ice, Flo Rida, Young MC, and Freedom Williams from C+C Music Factory.

Johnson’s post drew a swarm of criticism and ridicule, with many just flat out calling him “stupid” “racist,” or all of the above. A sampling of reactions is below.

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The post Benny Johnson Gets Shredded for Claiming Country Music Beating Rap on the Charts Is a Win for ‘American Culture’ first appeared on Mediaite.