The “Good Old Rebel” at the Heart of the Radical Right

• Published in: Southern cultures Vol. 26; no. 4; pp. 124 - 139
• Main Author: Thompson, Joseph M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press 22-12-2020; The University of North Carolina Press
• Subjects: Accentuation; African Americans; American Civil War; Authorship; Book publishing; Campaign songs; Conservatism; Criticism and interpretation; ESSAY; Folklore; History; Humor; Oppression; Political ballads and songs; Politics; Popular culture; Popular music; Radicalism; Rebellions; Rebels; Social networks; Songs; White supremacy; North Carolina; New York; California; United States; Confederate States of America > CSA; United States > US
• ISSN: 1068-8218; 1534-1488; 1534-1488
• DOI: 10.1353/scu.2020.0059

Good Old Rebel inventories all of the nations founding documents and symbols that he hates, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the US flag, as well as the Freedmens Bureau, the agency created in 1865 to implement the plans of Reconstruction and help formerly enslaved African Americans transition to liberty. An excavation of this song's origins and influences reveals how it found adoption as folklore, made its way into midcentury popular culture, and continues to spread through social media. [...]with an accent coded as uneducated, "Good Old Rebel" helps listeners cast those political feelings onto white southerners, sometimes referred to as "rednecks" or "hillbillies," who often act as pop culture's punch lines. [...]that shifting boundary between the song as a joke and the song as a threat allows "Good Old Rebel" to align with the modern-day "alt-right" communities that thrive online and traffic in ironic humor and plausible deniability to further their political agendas.