Patriotism in 2025 exists in a pretty strange place. There's a lot of loaded problems to grapple with that a lot of people with immense pride in the country don't. It's pretty hard tussling with America's incredibly complicated history and some of its continued evil practices today. Conversely, at its best, it's also a deeply beautiful cultural melting pot where all cultures can coexist. In an ideal world, we wouldn't divide over such deeply trivial matters if we had plain empathy for one another. Cody Johnson agrees with this perspective to a certain degree, narrowing down his beliefs pretty firmly at one of his concerts.
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Recently, Johnson performed at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. There, he pauses his show for a brief moment to highlight any military veterans, first responders, and emergency workers in the audience. Once they raised their hands, Cody emphatically encouraged the rest of the crowd to applaud them for their tireless work. Then, he launches into a rant about division in America.
Cody Johnson Rants About What It Means to Love America
"Four years ago the word was division — I guess it was five years ago now. All there was was division," Johnson says. "There was divisions about masks... vaccines... race... religion. There was divisions about politics because if you voted for this person or that person that means that we gotta hate each other."
"Well I got news for ya. Every bit of that was just a bunch of lies. I do not believe in division. I don't believe in hate. Three things that we can all agree on, that we can all believe in are just like this; red, white and blue," Cody declares.
Ultimately, Johnson's ideas on the country revolve around the men and women protecting the country and saving lives. Because of their hard work, he believes that's what can allow us to ever have disagreements in the first place. "Do you know why it's okay to disagree? They try to tell us it's because you believe different than I do, or I believe different than you do, or you believe different than her or him that we should hate each other. You know why it's okay that we disagree?" Cody asks.
"Because before most of us were born there was an American soldier that sacrificed their lives for us to have the right to disagree and still be united as one country under God." It's not the perfect kind of nuance but in a concert setting, I hear what he's getting at. Hopefully, this union Cody dreams of can come to fruition one day.
