Americans are angry about ... everything. Is that bad?

Early this year, country music artists Jeffrey Steele and Aaron Lewis spent hours at Mr. Lewis’ house in Nashville, trying to write a song to their fans. It was going poorly. 

Mr. Steele and Mr. Lewis are Nashville veterans. They know how to write songs about summertime and sweet rural life that sell, but they didn’t want to follow the formula. Both conservatives, they wanted a song that would make them feel connected to a community of fans with similar views. Writing one had been hard. 

So Mr. Steele looked up something he’d already written on his phone. It was called “Am I the Only One?,” an explicit half-vent, half-lament that America is changing.

The song is about “that feeling of being the only one sitting here tonight, watching my TV, feeling like the whole world is falling apart,” says Mr. Steele, a conservative Christian. “[Mr. Lewis] lit up on it.”

Released this July, “Am I the Only One?” debuted atop country charts, though some outlets

American tradition turned partisan warfare“Is it good anger or bad anger?”“Driven by what’s supposed to be”“It’s all about empathy”