Ethel Cain has defended her choice of words in the wake of the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
On Jan. 10, the 26-year-old musician shared a quote on her Instagram Story from former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, discussing how powerful groups such as the NRA, Big Oil and insurance companies influence Congress. Cain added the hashtag “#KillMoreCEOs” to the post, later clarifying she wasn’t aiming to be reactionary or “edgy.”
“I genuinely mean what I say. Corporations giggle at protesting,” Cain wrote. “Why would anyone ever willingly come down off their throne that they’ve spent years building off the suffering of their fellow man? Nobody is getting visited by the ghost of Christmas future, no one is having a change of heart. It’s simple, you make them fear for their lives and hit them in the only place they hurt or nothing will ever get done.”
I don’t even see how that’s an incredibly radical idea, she concluded. “It seems quite straightforward to me. ‘Violence is never the answer’ wrong. Sometimes it is.”
The backlash to the post was swift, with Fox News panelists Jason Chaffetz, Jackie DeAngelis, Anita Vogel and Guy Benson discussing the comments on an episode of the network’s The Big Weekend Show.
“The message there is violence is the answer,” Benson said in response to Cain’s post. “You know who used that exact same mentality, that type of language? Terrorists. That is actual terrorism, what she’s talking about here … This should be a very clear black-and-white moral issue, and it is scary to see how much support that type of sentiment has gotten.”
“People need to boycott her,” added DeAngelis, with Chaffetz saying, “I hope people call her out for this.”
Now, Cain has weighed in on the topic once again, taking to Tumblr to share a new post which defends her position, and questions why climate change and “corrupt” healthcare systems have become political issues.
“I find it funny that conservatives try to paint me calling for the death and destruction of multi-billionaire CEOs as some radical ‘woke liberal’ standpoint,” Cain began. “As if that even has anything to do with politics, especially in this era of surface level circus politics. The same way they try to politicize the hurricanes or the wildfires destroying parts of America, as if climate change is somehow a red vs. blue issue.”
“It’s no secret I’m from a deeply conservative family in the sticks of Florida and I still grew up hearing ‘I fought the law and the law won’. The healthcare system has fucked each and every member of my family in a different way at one point or another, as is the case with pretty much every family in this scorched earth nation.”
As Cain continued, she switched her attention to the “staunchly anti-government” origins of country music. In 2024, Billboard looked back at the changing politics of country music, noting how Richard Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign began to appeal to the historically Democratic-voting working and middle class Southern whites, ultimately instigating a gradual shift to the right for country music which – as Cain points out – has only continued.
“Remember when country music, the genre currently associated the heaviest with the most conservative faction of America, used to be staunchly anti-government and about sticking it to the man?” she asked. “Remember when the coal miners, grandfathers to the ‘Trump-er hillbillies’ of Appalachia that everyone loves to write off as ignorant, fought tooth and nail for unionization because the companies that were built off their labor didn’t give a shit if they lived or died? Since when has ‘upholding traditional values’ gone hand in hand with… defending lawmakers and oil tycoons.
“My family and I complain about the same issues at the dinner table. The men in charge better hope they can keep their digital smokescreens running as long as they can because the moment the rednecks and the hippies lay down their swords long enough to realize they have the same enemy, all hell is gonna break loose.”
Cain’s controversial comments came just two days after the release of her latest recording project, Perverts, which arrived as the follow-up to her acclaimed 2022 debut album, Preacher’s Daughter.
