I’ve been trying to ignore last week’s Jason Aldean controversy for a few reasons.

The first is I like Jason Isbell much better. Much better music, better sense of humor, and he wrote a song about almost dying in a Super 8 motel, which everyone can relate to. No?

But there’s only so much room in my life for Jasons who I actually I like: my cousin, Isbell, Newsted (Metallica), the hockey goalie, the guy with the Scorchers … that’s about it. My brain only has so much space.

Second is I’m tired of crybaby white men. It’s enough that I walk into the gym every morning and Fox News is snow-flaking about Hunter Biden, because life is so good there’s no other news to report in America.

But then I saw Jason Isbell got into it with Jason Aldean about his inclusive, non-threatening, feel-good hit of the summer, “Try That in a Small Town.” And, as an American, I was required to immediately pick a Jason.

It’s a song that (not at all) brilliantly lays out the case for “The Andy Griffith Show” being the American norm in 2023 and if you don’t like it, they’ll punch you in the face.

People got upset about the song of course, because this is America, where real problems don’t exist as long as men dressing as women send trafficked children into Satan’s campfire.

The song apparently takes issue with the 2020 Black Lives Matters protests, which conservatives still say burned down the entire Pacific Northwest with Jewish space lasers or something.

“Try that in a small town/ See how far ya make it down the road/ Around here, we take care of our own,” Aldean sings.

So conform or they’ll kick your ass.

At another point, Aldean, the guy who was on a Las Vegas stage in 2017 during the country’s worst mass shooting (of his audience), sings, “Got a gun that my granddad gave me/ They say one day they’re gonna round up/ Well that shit might fly in the city/ Good luck.”

I’m still waiting to hear who exactly threatened to round up what. The government doesn’t care because it has nukes and lasers. I do know no one is rounding up the NRA lobbyists in Washington who back Brinks trucks up to the Capitol Hill loading dock every week.

Aldean also sings, “Cuss out a cop, spit in his face/ Stomp on the flag and light it up/ Yeah, ya think you’re tough.”

That was either stolen from a Ratt song or an actual quote from the Constitution, I think.

And, just for fun, the song also says, “Try that in a small town/ Full of good ol’ boys, raised up right/ If you’re looking for a fight.”

Right. Then they continue to the Capitol and start bear-spraying cops and using the flag as a spear.

Sheryl Crow got mad, other people defended Jason Aldean. Dogs and cats started living together. It was mass hysteria. Isbell suggested Aldean at least defend a song he wrote himself (because this one ain’t his own).

“Dare Aldean to write his next single himself. That’s what we try in my small town… I’m challenging you to write a song yourself. All alone. If you’re a recording artist, make some art. I want to hear it… Seriously, how do you defend the content of a song you weren’t even in the room for? You just got it from your producer.”

Ok here ya go @Jason_Aldean I’m challenging you to write a song yourself. All alone. If you’re a recording artist, make some art. I want to hear it.

— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) July 20, 2023

Country singer Jake Owen stepped in, saying to Isbell, “Jason, you’re always the first to get behind your keyboard and spout off with this stupid shit. In ‘my small town’ you just walk up to the guy and be a man to his face if you want the smoke… not tweet it at him…. Tough guy.”

Isn’t this great?

Isbell said to Owen: “What really gets me about this is that it’s saying, ‘if you don’t believe you can physically overpower me, you aren’t allowed to publicly disagree with me.’ What does that say to the people in your life who aren’t big strong boys? They just have to shut up?”

According to Billboard, Aldean addressed the controversy on stage Friday in Cincinnati. “What I am is a proud American. I’m proud to be from here. I love our country. I want to see it restored to what it once was before all this bullshit started happening to us.”

Like … what bullshit? When we were constantly at war? Before we started doing crazy things like electing Black presidents, letting women have mortgages and run companies, and making laws addressing how we treat the poor and disabled?

Ahhh, the good old days. When people (of color, women, the disabled and generally different) knew their place.

I know, I’m complaining. But I remember those days, when women were Mrs. Husband’s Name. American exceptionalism … which, if it was ever true, was supposedly built on the idea of revolution (the American one), equality (the white person’s Constitution) and fighting fascism (Hitler).

Aldean also said, “I love my country, I love my family, and I will do anything to protect that, I can tell you that right now.”

From what, Jason? Protests are as “American” as holiday gluttony. What are we protecting it from today?

My grandfather fought in a war to protect it from fascism, which seems to be more than acceptable now. The uneducated? Nooooo, education is definitely on the outs in many places, unless its Bible indoctrination.

Protect it from … Russia? That was the enemy when I was a kid. Now, conservatives seem to think Russia’s OK because Democrats help Ukraine fight Russia.

Satan? Sex? Maybe. Not violence; at least not white violence. From a relatively few people who feel better in their skin by dressing as another gender?

Probably, according to Aldean’s wife, which is another demonstration of idiocy to ignore.

I think we need protection from Jason Aldean.

Just popping on here to say Jason Aldean is a clown. What else do y’all expect from a man who wore black face in 2015? https://t.co/Z4uZV3Un4Z pic.twitter.com/YXFxsW8lWF

— Margo Price (@MissMargoPrice) July 19, 2023

Follow music critic Tony Hicks at Twitter.com/TonyBaloney1967.