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Comedian Trae Crowder sat down with Fox News Digital last week to discuss how his upbringing in rural Tennessee helped shape him into the self-proclaimed "liberal redneck" he is today and what the Democratic Party could do to get working-class southerners back on their side.
Crowder grew up in the small rural town of Celina, Tennessee, where he was raised by his father, who ran a local video store and piqued his interest in all things "show business" with his artsy taste in music and films.
His mother, on the other hand, was "in and out of jail" and fell victim to the opioid epidemic — a tragically common occurrence in Crowder's hometown after prescription drugs flooded the area and businesses shuttered left and right.
"She got hooked on pills, started selling them, she was an addict and then a convict and all this stuff and the factory closed. All my family's businesses closed, and this happened to everybody," the comedian detailed.
Prior to the opioid epidemic, former President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) into law, which Crowder said led to the economic devastation of the rural manufacturing town.
Crowder grew up in rural Celina, Tennessee, a small town of approximately 1,400 residents. (Photo by: Jim McCambridge)
For the decades leading up to the 90's, the "beating heart" of the future comedian's hometown economy was an Oshkosh B'Gosh factory that employed many of the town's residents.
"You either worked at the factory, you worked at these other little businesses that sort of served the people that worked at that factory, like my dad's video store, my grandma had a restaurant, my uncle had a deli, my grandpa had like a car lot and a garage, all this stuff," said Crowder.
Once NAFTA went into effect, this all changed. The Oshkosh B'Gosh factory shut its doors and all the businesses that supported the workers at the factory, including the comedian's family's businesses, followed suit as the town's economy cratered.
"To this day in my hometown, it's just been economic devastation. And that's not the only thing that happened," he foreshadowed.
"I always say that another very important thing happened at the exact same time. The jobs left forever, and the pills showed up for good at the exact same time. That's right when you know Big Pharma was like, ‘Hey, guess what we got? You heard of Oxycontin? Pretty sweet, huh?’ And that happened at the same time, and it was just that combination of those things that just ruined my hometown," Crowder told Fox News Digital.
This is when, according to Crowder, his father swore he would never vote for another Democrat for as long as he lived.
The comedian's rural town was ravaged by the opioid epidemic after NAFTA had already done serious damage to the small town's manufacturing economy. (Photo by Stephen J. Cohen/Getty Images)
Over 20 years later, a New York City real-estate mogul came onto the political scene and seemingly spoke directly to the hardships Crowder's hometown had been facing for over two decades.
"In 2016, all these years later, Donald Trump starts showing up, and it's like — I never believed him from the beginning that anything would really materially change, but he was like talking about — the only person even pretending to care about people in my hometown," Crowder recalled.
Although the comedian didn't buy into what future President Donald Trump was selling at the time, the real-estate mogul's message resonated deeply with many in his hometown who had felt left behind by previous administrations.
"Now, if you ask me, in my opinion, because at the time was saying that, I was like, 'Look, I don't believe him. I think it's all bull----.' But like, I get why there's an appeal there," he noted. "I understand where you're coming from, people in my hometown, but all these years later, you go to my hometown it's, if anything, it's worse."
While Crowder isn't a fan of Trump himself, he did acknowledge that he understands why so many Southerners found his message attractive in 2016. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
Crowder questioned why so many Southerners are still loyal to Trump, despite his view that many rural southern towns like his hometown have only gotten worse under his watch.
When asked by Fox News Digital what Democrats could be doing to win back rural southerners, Crowder noted that may be a far-gone aspiration.
"I don't want to say that ship has sailed, but like, it's just so deep-seated, the sense of like, betrayal, but also elitism," he said.
Crowder pointed out that many Southern Democrats, like his father, had felt betrayed by the Democratic Party following NAFTA and despised the party's perceived elitism towards them.
"They just think Democrats think they're better than everybody else. They look down on us. It goes even beyond that now over the past few years, like QAnon and everything where it's not just that, but also they drink baby's blood or whatever. The PR is horrible," he observed.
Crowder's most recent special, "Trash Daddy," premiered March 13 and can be streamed on YouTube.
The comedian called Democrats losing their status as the party of the working class "the biggest mistake they've ever made" and asserted that he's unsure if they can ever get it back.
"They can try, but like I said, it'll take years to undo the damage that's been done, I think. But they need to try to speak more to just like regular people's issues and problems and working-class stuff, I think, than they do. Some of them do, but broadly, they don't," he claimed.
Crowder's newest comedy special "Trash Daddy" premiered on March 13 and is currently streaming on YouTube.
