I think it’s so funny when people talking about modern country music becoming “woke” and how they need to “go back to old country music”. Because dude, old country music was like, super progressive. Loretta Lynn wrote songs about birth control, Dolly Parton wrote songs about inequality and working systems, Willie Nelson wrote songs about gay cowboys and wrote several Antiwar songs, and several songs about marijuana, Reba wrote a song about AIDS in a time when people were terrified of it. And y’all know Johnny Cash was progressive as hell! He got into fights with the Klan, has songs about prison reform, songs about Native American issues and Antiwar songs. What Kelsea Ballerini did at the CMT awards was extremely brave, and most of the time it is women in modern day country music who risk their careers to stand up for what they believe in, but it’s absolutely not anything new and all of the “old country musicians” that these hateful fans like so much would more likely than not support these new progressive artists.