Toby Keith’s Political Views Were More Complicated Than You Might Think
Toby Keith's patriotic songs came to be synonymous with unabashed American pride, and for many, that equated him with conservative politics or Pres. Donald Trump's MAGA movement.
Multiple right-leaning candidates — including Trump himself, and Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — have used Keith's music at rallies and campaign events.
But the reality of Keith's personal political views was significantly more nuanced.
Why Toby Keith Always Supported the U.S. Military
In terms of politics,Toby Keith was most vocal about his support for American military troops. That support was a constant throughout the last 25 years of Keith's career, and it showed up in his lyrics, his philanthropy and the many USO tours he embarked on over the course of his life.
Keith's passion for supporting the troops came from his father, H.K. Covel Jr., who served as a PFC in the Army in the 1950s and lost his right eye during a training combat mission.
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After Keith started getting his first country hits in the mid-1990s, his dad began "begging" him to go on USO tours, the singer once told The Boot. But at the time, he just "didn't have it in my schedule." That all changed in 2001. His father died in a car accident that March. Then, six months later, the Sept. 11 attacks occurred.
"I was like, 'Now I have to go honor him,'" Keith recalled.
So he did: Keith became one of country music's most tireless supporters of the military. He performed nearly 300 USO shows, won the Spirit of the USO Award in 2014 and once, at a concert in Afghanistan in 2008, returned to finish a concert after a mortar attack paused his show.
That staunch support for the military might fall into the stereotype of a conservative voter today, but at the time, Keith didn't see it that way. In fact...
Did You Know Toby Keith Was Never a Registered Republican?
Toby Keith was a registered Democrat for much of his life. He came from a family of Democrats, including his father.
"He was a Yellow Dog Democrat; he was a lifetime Democrat," Keith once explained. (A Yellow Dog Democrat refers to a straight-party ticket voter who would "vote for a yellow dog if he ran on the Democratic ticket.")
Though his dad didn't live to see the Sept. 11 attacks, Keith would later reflect that he thought his late father would be "really angry."
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"My dad, he always was like, 'Everybody feels like everybody's getting their toes stepped on these days. Everybody has to have thicker skin, and you can't be soft on things. You have to be stronger and know right from wrong instead of right from left," the singer said.
The attacks were a catalyst in Keith's life, too, punctuated by the release of what's still perhaps his best-known song, "Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue (The Angry American.)"
Seven years later, in 2008, Keith would switch his voter registration from Democrat to independent. In 2016, he told the Chicago Tribune, "I was a Democrat my whole life. They kind of disowned me when I started supporting the troops, then I went and registered independent."
He remained a registered independent until his death in February 2024.
What Presidents Did Toby Keith Perform For + Support?
According to Newsweek, Toby Keith says he voted for Pres. Bill Clinton twice in the '90s and early 2000s, but that he "didn't care for" subsequent Democratic candidates Al Gore or John Kerry.
Keith publicly endorsed George W. Bush in 2004 and performed at a rally for the Republican candidate the night before the election.
The singer's legendary 2003 feud with The Chicks started with Natalie Maines' comments criticizing Pres. Bush and the U.S.'s War in Iraq. Keith's opposition to Maines' sentiments are well-documented, but what's less well known is that Keith voiced some doubts of his own about the war.
"When the Iraq war started, I was a little mad because we didn't finish what we started in Afghanistan," he told CBS in 2006. "Our troops had to move on into Iraq. Our government asked them to go do it for whatever reason. We won't know for probably 20 or 30 years whether it was the right thing to do or not."
During the 2008 election cycle, Keith told the Associated Press that Obama was the "best Democratic candidate we've had since Bill Clinton," but he also expressed support for Obama's opponent John McCain. The singer's views toward Obama cooled over the president's two terms, but he continued to express support for Obama's strong military stance, and he performed at the Nobel Peace Price Concert honoring the president in 2009.
Toby Keith also performed at Pres. Donald Trump's 2017 inauguration — a somewhat controversial decision, as multiple stars had declined the gig.
But Keith framed his performance as patriotic duty, not necessarily support for Trump's politics.
He told The Atlantic that when "the president of the frickin' United States asks you to do something and you can go, you should go instead of being a jack-off."
He also emphasized that his performance was for his country and the U.S. military.
"At the end of the day, I was asked to perform the military part of the show at [Trump's] inauguration. It’s a weaker stance if you back out. A lot of people did," he said at the 2017 Country Radio Seminar, according to The Boot. "I shouldn’t have to. This is our country."
In that same speech, he also spoke to the value he places on unity as a country. "We’re so divided," Keith said. "If you allow that to happen, and you succumb to that pressure, then it divides us and keeps incapacitating us."
When Did Toby Keith Die?
Toby Keith died on Feb. 5, 2024 after a battle with stomach cancer.
Just a month and a half later, he was announced as an inductee for that year into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Keith was inducted posthumously in the fall of 2024.
13 Toby Keith Facts You Probably Never Knew
Gallery Credit: Billy Dukes
