Jason Aldean's anti-thug song is a hit, and the Washington Post isn't amused.

It wants to maintain the Finlandization of Nashville.

Jason Aldean, a country music star, has produced a massive hit single called “Try that in a small town.” The music video of this song is also hugely popular.

The “that” in the song’s title is looting, carjacking, and other such thuggish crimes. Aldean warns that in a small town, “good ole boys, raised up right” will make sure the perpetrators suffer consequences, and quickly.

The left is disturbed by the popularity of Aldean’s song and video. The Washington Post asks whether they may have “far-reaching effects.” (The quotation is from the headline in the paper edition.)

If by “effects,” the Post means deterring thugs from looting and carjacking, the answer, of course, is no. Deterrence will require action, not song lyrics.

If the Post means rallying public sentiment against thuggery, the answer might be yes. The public is already becoming fed up with the lawlessness— and not just people who live in small towns.

The effect the Post may fear the most is unleashing Nashville into America’s culture wars. As things stand now, Nashville is the only precinct of our popular culture that is neutral in these wars — the left having captured all other outposts. As the Post says, Aldean’s outspokenness about politics is “a rarity” in the country music genre because the industry “urges its stars to stay silent on politics.”

Given the presence of conservatives at the apex of the country music scene, the Post would like to keep things that way.

In Hollywood and other portions of the music industry, though, no one is urging star performers to be bashful about discussing politics — not unless the star in question happens to be that rare conservative inhabitant. On the contrary, liberal stars (and non-stars, too) are celebrated for their alleged courage when they spout standard-issue leftist talking points. Moreover, Ken Burns, in his epic documentary about country music, praises country artists who took liberal positions during culture wars of 50 years ago.

Although fear of unleashing Nashville is a big driver of liberal anxiety over Aldean’s song, there’s more to it than that. The left fears that the simple truth behind the song — that looting and carjacking are unacceptable to people “raised up right” and therefore such thuggery cannot be tolerated — and the prevalence of these forms of lawlessness might tilt the political map in favor of conservatives.

To counter Aldean’s message, the left plays the race card. The Post notes that “social media erupted [against Aldean] as critics said the song contains coded threats against Black people.” The backlash caused CMT (Country Music Television) to stop showing the video.

Aldean counters that “I think if you really look at the video with an open mind, you’ll see there’s a lot of different races in there doing stupid shit.” He’s right. And it’s no secret that the Antifa thugs, for example, generally are white.

I should also observe that the left is doing no service to blacks when it assumes that a song and video about rampant lawlessness and anti-social behavior is an attack on them.

In fact, blacks are the biggest losers in the rash of lawlessness plaguing our “big towns.” To a grossly disproportionate degree, they are the main victims (at the hands of other blacks) of the surge in murders and shootings.

In addition, they will suffer disproportionately if store lootings persist on the present scale. Indeed, the same issue of the Post in which the attack on Aldean appears carries a front-page article on the harm to black communities caused by theft at grocery stores.

The Post describes a last ditch effort to prevent the closing of the only major grocer in the poorest part of Washington, D.C. That store has been plagued by “rampant theft” to the point that it can’t operate profitably. The Post quotes the city’s deputy mayor who says the closure of the store would jeopardize public health in this mostly black area.

Why, then, is it racist to write a song denouncing looting and threatening consequences for the looters and other such criminals?

Those who assert that racism is in the picture make arguments that are downright embarrassing. For example, the Post points out that the music video was filmed at the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tenn., where a mob hanged a Black teenager in 1927. But there’s no evidence that Aldean knew about this lynching or that he chose the location (his production company says he didn’t), which is a frequent filming venue.

What comes through clearly in the Post’s report about Aldean is that left-wing outrage at his song and video isn’t causing him to back down. To the contrary, he says his media critics “can take your narratives and shove them all the way up your ass.” I suspect that these “narratives” are helping Aldean sell even more records and increase his personal popularity.

I hope the success of “Try that in a small town” prompts other conservative country artists to engage politically. For that matter, I hope liberals in the industry will engage, as well. Country music stars should feel as free as their counterparts in film, sports, and the rest of the music industry to speak up on issues of the day.

And we should feel free to take what they say seriously — or not. In most cases the latter option will be the better one, but not in the case of “Try that in a small town.”