{"id":871509,"date":"2026-06-16T16:21:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T16:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/871509\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T16:21:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T16:21:20","slug":"zac-browns-anthem-performance-at-ufc-white-house-wasnt-patriotic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/871509\/","title":{"rendered":"Zac Brown’s Anthem Performance at UFC White House Wasn’t Patriotic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThis past Sunday, Zac Brown<\/a> delivered one of country music\u2019s most beloved refrains: It\u2019s not political, it\u2019s patriotic. <\/p>\n

\n\tHe also performed the national anthem.<\/p>\n

\n\tBrown sang \u201cThe Star-Spangled Banner\u201d at the cage fights<\/a> held on the South Lawn of the White House<\/a>, standing honorably on an American flag-themed Monster Energy drink logo, beneath the glow of a massive UFC<\/a> claw in a suit that was lightly giving cartoon detective at Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s birthday bash. If you want to memorialize the event, you can purchase the official patriotic t-shirt<\/a> (imported).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is patriotism, not politics for me,\u201d Brown told the Pat McAfee Show<\/a> in an interview about appearing at the match. \u201cI mean, fuck all the division. I don\u2019t believe in that. I love this country. I love all the people that have sacrificed so that I can live my American dream.\u201d Brown was on the show to combat some criticism he\u2019d received for signing on to appear at the event \u2014 a night that unfolded in an extremely non-apolitical way when heavyweight fighter Josh Hokit capped his win by yelling<\/a> \u201cMichelle Obama is a man\u201d to the crowd. Whether or not you try to preemptively excuse yourself by declaring it\u2019s about \u201cpatriotism,\u201d anything Trump does is inherently political. Of course it ended with its winner hollering a ridiculous, unpatriotic statement about the only Black First Lady in history.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor country artists, it\u2019s one of the oldest tricks in the try-to-keep-as-many-fans-as-possible playbook. Many before Brown have lobbed the \u201cit\u2019s not political, it\u2019s patriotic\u201d packaging when doing anything but: Jason Aldean\u2019s racially coded \u201cTry That in a Small Town,\u201d<\/a> Toby Keith\u2019s jingoistic<\/a> \u201cCourtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American),\u201d Darryl Worley\u2019s \u201cHave You Forgotten.\u201d Musicians aren\u2019t obligated to do anything political as part of the job, and plenty of audiences appreciate when artists don\u2019t preach partisan points of view. But doing something divisive and trying to explain it away with \u201cpatriotism\u201d is, to many, a step too far.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m ashamed,\u201d says Michael Trotter Jr. of the War and Treaty<\/a>, a veteran of the Iraq war who endured live combat. \u201cI take great pride in being able to say that I served this country and served it well. So, I am ashamed that people would hide behind the term \u2018patriotism.\u2019 I\u2019m ashamed that grown men would use a sporting event to throw a jab at a former First Lady, who represented the very grounds the event was on with class, dignity, and beauty. I\u2019m ashamed that my colleagues participated in it. But the truth of the matter is there\u2019s nothing patriotic about what we just saw.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo be fair, Brown has used his platform to direct resources and support to military families and veterans with his Camp Southern Ground organization. Because of that, the \u201cChicken Fried\u201d singer likely knows where patriotism ends and politics begins \u2014 and where Trump\u2019s machismo 80th birthday party might fall on that scale.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tTrotter, meanwhile, is launching an organization called iVet Cares with his wife Tanya, to support veterans, and says he wants more country artists to stop posturing and start listening about what being patriotic actually means. \u201cI think most artists think that throwing money at a thing is enough, but it\u2019s more important to listen to veterans, listens to soldiers and sailors and Marines, and really learn what they truly need. And then go lobbying, go to congress and get involved,\u201d he says. \u201cArtists need to stop being artists, and start being humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe UFC event was supposed to show support for veterans, but that was murky at best. It was reported<\/a> that military members in attendance were held to a \u201cfitness standard,\u201d and were required to pay for their own travel, while the for-profit event drew a crowd of tech billionaires and shilled for advertisers. In the end, as is custom with anything the Trump administration<\/a> does, the divisive nature of a cage match at the people\u2019s house made the potential for any real patriotism impossible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This past Sunday, Zac Brown delivered one of country music\u2019s most beloved refrains: It\u2019s not political, it\u2019s patriotic.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":871510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[9],"tags":[69,171,4352,552,67,132,68,5223,71509],"class_list":["post-871509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-trump-administration","tag-ufc","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-white-house","tag-zac-brown"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116760706026069795","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}