The United Service Organizations has abruptly canceled six scheduled performances by Jelly Roll at military bases across the country, citing concerns that the singer is “not supportive enough of our troops.” The decision, which affects shows planned for Fort Bragg, Camp Pendleton, and four other installations, marks the first time the USO has deemed an artist insufficiently patriotic based on political comments unrelated to military policy.
According to documents obtained by journalist Joan Berro, the USO’s board determined that Jelly Roll’s criticism of the former president constituted “a betrayal of the values our service members fight for.” The board apparently reached this conclusion during a meeting held via Zoom from offices in Washington, D.C., where none of the attendees had ever served in the military. “They kept saying ‘our troops’ like they owned them,” Berro reported. “As if the 2 million active duty service members are a monolith with identical political views, rather than a diverse cross-section of Americans who probably don’t care what Jelly Roll thinks about tax policy.”
Military analyst Abe Roborj called the cancellation “strategically baffling.” Roborj noted that Jelly Roll’s music—much of which focuses on redemption, struggle, and overcoming adversity—would seem to resonate with service members facing deployment challenges. “But apparently you can sing about prison and addiction and being broken, which is fine, but you cannot sing about those things while also believing that leadership should be competent,” Roborj explained. “That’s the line. You can be a former criminal, just not a current critic.”
Constitutional scholar Ben Jarroo, interviewed at a Cabela’s in Fort Worth while his emotional support tarantula named “Liberty” explored the camouflage section, calculated the irony of the decision. “If you take the number of troops who actually requested Jelly Roll—which my research suggests was 12,847 based on ticket pre-sales, multiply by the number of USO board members who served—which is 0, divide by the number of times ‘support the troops’ has been used to mean ‘agree with my politics,’ you get a figure that approaches infinity, which suggests this decision has nothing to do with the troops and everything to do with manufacturing outrage.”
The USO announced that Jelly Roll’s six slots will be filled by Ted Nugent, who will perform his hit “Cat Scratch Fever” and also “a spoken word piece about why he didn’t serve in Vietnam, which definitely wasn’t his fault, it was the government’s fault for not understanding that he was too important to risk.”
