In the two weeks since his song “Rich Men North of Richmond” went viral, Oliver Anthony has been called a “conservative hero,” a right-wing villain who “punches down,” and, in a bizarre Wall Street Journal column, a “grumpy” outlier in a genre “devoted to gratitude.”

The author, a self-described “late-blooming country fan” must never have heard the classic joke about country music: “What do you get when you play country music backwards? You get your house back, your car back, your wife back…”

Hilariously, the media and political elite were shocked when Anthony came out swinging after Fox News ironically played his song to open the Republican debate to a group of people vying to become the ultimate rich (or at least powerful) man north of Richmond.

“It’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me like I’m one of them,” Anthony told The New York Times. “I see the right, trying to characterize me as one of their own. And I see the left trying to discredit me.”

Welcome Oliver Anthony to the polarizing animosity, name-calling, and utter confusion experienced by whistleblowers nationwide. Except, he wasn’t uncovering secrets hidden by the wealthy or profits stolen out of sheer greed.

Quite the opposite: In a case of reverse whistle-blowing, Anthony truth-talked about actual American life to a rarefied crowd who have no idea what it’s like to try and survive on an average American salary.

As someone who grew up a latchkey kid on and below the Mason Dixon — raised by a single parent who at one point had to work four jobs— the song’s opening stanza rings more true to me than any pablum in a Harvard social thesis:

“I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day/
Overtime hours for bullsh– pay/
So I can sit out here and waste my life away/
Drag back home and drown my troubles away.” 

You’d think in the decades since I was kid, things would have gotten better for the working class — the teachers, the policemen, the firemen, the miners of America. You’d be wrong. 

On Wednesday an Idaho teacher who posts on TikTik under the handle @fouronacouch went viral after revealing her salary versus her bills… showing she ended up with a measly $25 left over every month. The teacher noted, “I wanna cry this month.” The post’s nasty comments blaming her for her lack of money are deeply disturbing. 

Or take Kentucky – the state where I graduated from high school (considered the third cheapest state in the union), where the average salary is $51,500… which amounts to $43,313 after taxes. The cost of living in the state (per person) is $41,000 – so, if you’re single, that’s a whopping $2,313 left over to play with each year.

Unless, of course, there’s a car accident (average national car insurance deductible is $500), a medical emergency (average national health care deductible is $2,004) or something else that comes up to eat into the $192 you could possibly squirrel away each month. 

And If you have a child, you’re really screwed. The cost of raising a kid in the Bluegrass State is $15,000… which means, working for an average salary in Kentucky, minus cost of living and child estimates, leaves you $12,687 in the hole. 

So, to make rent and pay bills, most average folks work more than one job. Indeed, according to the US census, the number of multiple jobholdings increased from 6.8% in the second quarter of 1996 to 7.8% in the first quarter of 2018. The Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that over 8 million Americans had “multiple jobs.” 

The result? Many Americans – the mass majority who aren’t featured in newspapers, websites, or television programs — are running like gerbils on a wheel week in and week out, lucky to get a day off to actually enjoy those children they cannot afford. Yet truth tellers like Anthony or @fouronacouch are pilloried for simply making known what elites try so hard to deny. 

For most Americans life is hard — and has only gotten harder. Shaming those like Anthony who sing about that reality only makes it worse. Politicians may try to co-opt Anthony’s prose. But like an Orwellian version of the three wise monkeys – in truth, they don’t see it, they don’t hear it, they don’t speak about it. They certainly do not live it.

Paula Froelich is the senior story editor and on-air talent for NewsNation. She can be found on Instagram @pfro.