Paul Mulshine says that Natalie Maines was in over her cultural head, and doesn’t understand her fan base at all.

The only thing that would astound the typical country fan about Maines’ encounter with anti- Americanism is the fact that she didn’t slug the person expressing it. Another singer from country’s classic era, Merle Haggard, put it this way: “When you’re runnin’ down my country, man, you’re walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me.”

Without knowing it, Maines tripped over a prominent divide in American life, one that became apparent in the run-up to the current war on Iraq. Some of us look up to the Europeans as the living embodiment of a higher civilization. And some of us look down on them as relics of a fading civilization.

I’ve always been bemused at the cultural divide not only between Red Country and Blue Country, but the one between the seemingly related musical genres of folk and country. I’m not that much of a country fan, but I’ve been a devotee of folk music since the sixties. I increasingly find that as such, I have to not only overlook some massively stupid political opinions of people whom I otherwise consider talented and pleasant to listen to, but to rein in my own political opinions when attending concerts. I can be almost certain that as, well, for lack of a better label, a hawkish libertarian, I’m in enemy territory, politically at such venues. It’s almost as bad as attending a Unitarian service.

I suspect that the political gap between the folk music community, and the community of its C/W offspring, is attributable to the “urban folk” boom of the sixties, in which it became heavily associated with protest, and particularly socialist and leftist protest. Fortunately, despite that stereotype, there’s a broad enough range of it, including instrumental, that I can still enjoy it, both on recorded media and live, just as long as I can hold my tongue.