In the wake of nationwide raids performed by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) in the U.S., Grammy-winning singer-songwriter and U.S. Navy veteran Zach Bryan is entering the conversation. The 29-year-old, who’s made a good living so far off great songwriting, double-albums, sold-out football stadiums, and a resistance to industry demands, like sitting down for interviews and embracing genre labels, is ruffling feathers with just mere seconds of music.
On his Instagram page over the weekend, Bryan posted a clip of him singing a song he’s calling “the fading of the red white and blue,” according to the caption. In the snippet, he sings, “ICE is gonna come bust down your door. Try to build a house, no one builds no more. Well I got a telephone, kids are all scared and all alone. The bars start bumping, the rocks start rolling, the middle finger’s rising and it won’t stop showing, got some bad news. The fadin’ of a red, white, and blue.”
Bryan’s political leanings have always been a bit of a gray area. On the surface, his rebellion against the musical establishment (he did name a live album All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster, after all) suggests that he’s one of country music’s “good guys,” like Tyler Childers or Jason Isbell. In 2023, he condemned hate against trans people, writing in a since-deleted tweet, “I just think insulting transgender people is completely wrong because we live in a country where we can all just be who we want to be. It’s a great day to be alive I thought.” But a year later, he expressed sympathy for President Donald Trump after his assassination attempt, with an adamancy that he supports neither Democrats nor Republicans, which I think is a very boring and exhausted “both sides”-ing thing to do, especially in 2025. My hunch has always been that Bryan is a “your business ain’t my business” kind of guy. Seems like now he’s finally taking a page out of his hero Bruce Springsteen’s playbook, chasing songs and speaking up for the people he’s singing them to.
It wasn’t the American government’s support of the genocide in Gaza or the onslaught of anti-trans legislation being voted on across the country that crossed the line for Bryan, not musically at least. It’s (seemingly) Trump’s current political platform, which explicitly and cruelly favors mass deportation (the Department of Homeland Security claims that over 2 million people have been deported from America in 2025 alone). Maybe it was the DHS’ response to Bad Bunny getting tapped for the Super Bowl LX Halftime Show that especially did it, as chief of staff Corey Lewandowski said, “ICE will have enforcement at the Super Bowl for the Bad Bunny halftime show,” on October 1. Two days later, just hours before Bryan’s post, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed that “ICE will be all over the Super Bowl.”
A chunk of Bryan’s fan base is made up of MAGA grifters, something he’s no doubt aware of and is, at the very least, trying to distance himself from this week. And some of those folks are not happy with his supposed stance on ICE. Cowboy-riding country singer John Rich wrote on X, “Who’s ready for the Zach Bryan-Dixie Chicks tour? Prob a huge Bud Light sponsorship for this one,” referring to the beer brand’s partnership with Dylan Mulvaney, because the conversations always have to include trans people… right? Not all of Bryan’s 4.9 million Instagram followers agreed with his stance on ICE, either. In the now-disabled comment section of his teaser, someone wrote: “Didn’t know Zach was an illegal sympathizer.” But others praised him for “speaking about how America is falling apart.” On People‘s site, one user said, “So glad to see someone from the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ genre of music standing up for what’s right for once!”
I’m not a fortune teller. Who knows how much good a 60-second clip is going to do for our country. The distance between reaction and action has never been greater. Will this new song even get completed for a future album? Considering that Bryan has never shied away from releasing too much material, I can imagine that a finished version might very well show up somewhere down the line. But I hope that these lyrics on social media turn into boots on the ground. I know he’s not pumping out “protest music” at the rate of someone like TikTok song peddler Jesse Welles, of course, but he’s also not remaining totally quiet. At the very least, it doesn’t feel like a PR campaign or a cash-grab. That’s not Bryan’s bag. And, considering that he just put on the largest-ticketed concert in U.S. history (112,408 people attended his show at Michigan Stadium last month), I’d say sitting on the other side of the fence this time was a pretty cool way to feed off that momentum. Plus: seeing the folks who are in bed with fascists find out that their favorite musician isn’t under the sheets with them is always a gas.
Oh, and the DHS responded to Bryan’s song today. The assistant secretary of public affairs, Tricia McLaughlin, told TMZ (because we live in a very unserious country) that Bryan should “stick to ‘Pink Skies.’” Well, we really liked that song and even put it on our year-end list in 2024. So, to hell with ya, Tricia!
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