Waylon Jennings, the Ultimate 'Outlaw,' Explains A Lot About MAGA

Beer, bait, and ammo: Trump's base doesn't need Trump to be MAGidiots

Courtesy of Collector’s Weekly 

“Well, ain’t no good old boy ever sung Swahili, I think I’m outta here.” Those were the words uttered by Waylon Jennings in 1985 when he decided he no longer wanted to be part of the “We Are the World” song. The song’s making is currently on Netflix and was interesting to watch. Jennings just walked out and was gone from one of the biggest songs ever.

From what I know about Waylon Jennings, it is not much. I don’t think for a second that he regretted his move. The original outlaw country musician, Jennings, was always bucking the system. In 1966, he released an album called Nashville Rebel and followed it up in 1972 with Ladies Love Outlaws. Jennings didn’t like the regimentation the business side of Nashville was forcing upon country singers. He didn’t appreciate the attempts to steer the content of songs in a more commercially appealing direction. Jennings wanted to be Jennings, a cranky, racist, good old boy from Texas — ain’t no one gonna tell a Texan good old boy what he can sing and how he can dress. Jennings ditched the rhinestone suit and donned the leather jacket.

Trump embodies the spirit of the outlaw in many ways. It was often remarked that for Trump to succeed as the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth, he would need to temper his brash, uncouth demeanor, his ‘Trumpiness.’ This echoes how Jennings, as an outlaw, refused to conform to the expectations of the Nashville music scene. The more prosecuted — which they view as persecution — Trump becomes, the deeper their sense of loyalty grows. 

Like the Westerns of the old days, the ruthless killer hunted by the upstanding citizen sheriff was often the hero. Bucking the ways of the “system” somehow aligned itself with the “true American spirit,” the spirit of Boston and the Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and so many other revolutionary moments. Spreading out to the western frontier and fighting off anyone or thing that stood in your way of building a new world, one in which you and your family rule supreme, was the perceived genuine American spirit. 

The sentiment that “we built this, and we spilled out blood defending this” justified the protests of future generations of rebels and outlaws against attempts by the federal government to instill rules, regulations, and laws. Waylon Jennings’s 1985 revolt against the idea of a white, good old boy singing “God only knows what” in Swahili was fully in line with the ethos that an outlaw must always fight back when he finds himself the least bit “pressed upon.” 

Donald Trump has shamelessly spent the last eight years unveiling for all to see a level of narcissism that would have resulted in any other person having been treated by mental health professionals. At the same time, he is revealing how vile and putrid his soul is. None of this, however, means anything to the MAGidiots. 

They regard Trump’s rebellion as glorious and fully in the vein of the greatest outlaws of yesteryear. Waylon Jennings was a troubled man with a drug addiction that nearly destroyed him and undoubtedly caused a lot of pain for many in his life, but the good old boys loved him because he was bucking the system — he was living according to his own rules and f*** anyone who didn’t like them. 

Trump’s obsession with himself means nothing to MAGidiots because what Trump is fighting for is much bigger than him and all of them. They believe he is fighting for the right to live however you want, free of consequences, mores, and values. The belief that “If I don’t want no Mexicans (Blacks, gays or lesbians, etc.) going to school with my kids, then why do I have to agree that it’s okay?” 

The America they inhabit, whether it be for real or just an imagined one, is a place where it’s perfectly okay to ride down the street in a big, gas-guzzling pick-up with a beer in hand, shotgun on the back window, a Confederate flag waving proudly from the bed and big old dog hanging out the window. Walking into the local shop with a cigarette blazing, they let it be known that “If you don’t like smoke, well, I’m sorry, this is America, and in America, you can do pretty much whatever the hell you want, and ain’t no one gonna tell me different…especially no lawman.”

Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Willie Nelson were pushing this Texas brand of music in the hope that it would also reinvent American politics to become more beer, bait, and ammo. Jennings wouldn’t live to see his dream come true, and it’s not known whether he would have been able to stomach the psychosis of Trump, it is said he had a good read on grifters and bullshitters. More today than ever, though, the Nashville anti-establishment songs are popular, and with each new hit, Trump and MAGA get free advertising.

The ethos of the outlaw is why nothing Trump does will ever make his legend wane. The worse he is, the more people love him, and Donald Trump understands this better than anyone.