Natalie Maines, the singer for The Chicks, has once again turned her frustration with Republican presidents into a public blast at Donald Trump. Maines, 51, posted online that Trump, 79, was a “fugly s--t,” then added that “Our democracy is disappearing right before our eyes.”
In a follow-up post, Maines wrote, “This fugly s--t is using your gas money to pay the insurrectionists.” She also said, “My last post that called him a fugly s--t got removed. We’ll see how long this one lasts. Repost and help the message live. Named 1M times in the #epsteinfiles #democracy #freespeech #fuglys--t.” The remarks landed as Trump faces renewed scrutiny over a plan tied to more than $1.7 billion in taxpayer money and an “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” while the source also says he has been named in the Epstein files thousands of times. Maines’ comments came on Feb. 28.
The new attack fits a pattern that has followed Maines for years. She previously condemned President George W. Bush’s war in Iraq and told a London concert crowd she was “ashamed” that Bush was from Texas. That comment cost her and bandmates Emily Strayer and Martie Maguire dearly: hundreds of country music stations banned the group, and all three received death threats from furious fans. Maines later apologized, saying, “As a concerned American citizen, I apologize to President Bush because my remark was disrespectful.”
The backlash from that era still shadows the band. In 2020, the group formerly known as The Dixie Chicks dropped the word “Dixie” because of its association with the slavery era and the American South. The name change was meant to mark a break from a label that had become inseparable from a political fight Maines never really stopped having.
Now she has brought that fight back into the center of the conversation with Trump. Her latest posts also tap into the same fault line that made her a target before: a country audience, a Republican president and a singer willing to say something that many supporters see as unforgivable. What changes this time is the platform. Maines no longer needs a concert stage to set off a backlash. A post, a repost and a hashtag can do the job just as fast.
For Maines, the question is not whether she is backing away from the confrontation. She is not. She is repeating it, louder and more explicitly, and making clear that the old divide between her and Trump’s supporters remains exactly where it was before.
