Will Hoge Indicts the Charlatan-in-Chief in New ‘Con Man Blues’ Video

Will Hoge may be a Nashville songwriter with some hit country co-writes under his belt, but he wears his punk-rock influences proudly in “Con Man Blues,” a Ramones-length ripper about a certain lying president.

Hoge debuted a video for the track, off his latest album Tiny Little Movies, on Thursday in which he and his socially distanced band tear through the just over two-minute song from inside a barren white studio. Hoge and his players are a blur of magnetic energy, but it’s the almost subliminal images of infamous politicians and bullshit pundits that mesmerize.

As quotes from Orwell’s 1984 whiz by, so does Trump’s face. In some images, he’s a clown, in others a baby sucking his thumb. Others still depict him as assorted Satanic beasts (and not the fun Mötley Crüe kind either). Mitch McConnell, Stephen Miller and Sean Hannity also show up, juxtaposed with photos of “Hillary for Prison” signs and burning crosses.

The video is intense, pissed-off Hoge of the highest caliber.

“There is a group of folks that has been taken advantage of by these bullshit con men for years,” he told IndieLand earlier this summer. “You saw it in the Civil War era, and the post-Civil War era. There were poor undereducated white folks who were sold this bill of goods that they think they’re helping themselves or they think they’re helping the country or they think they’re helping their religion. But if I say I bought into this con man, I have to admit I was fooled.”