The Tennessee Three

Something’s rotten in Tennessee.

Is it the ultra-conservative deeply-entrenched highly-gerrymandered state legislators? Well, yeah, actually. As it turns out, just after a Nashville shooting (yes, another mass shooting), three legislators protested along with many constituents. Then, the Republican supermajority has kicked two of them out of Congress, which means they’ll have to re-run for their seats.

So what’s going on? Well, the shooting happened in Nashville, which has always been a democratic island in the state. The supermajority have been targeting Nashville’s liberal leadership by redistricting, and Nashville has been sending people to the legislature for quite a long time who have been…inconvenient…for a culture of guns, guns, guns. What happens next? Probably the representatives will be reinstated (at this time, one of them has been), but they’re still up for special election. And they’ve been removed from committee.

If this looks like a power play, it is. The protest may have been loud (there were megaphones), but it was peaceful, and yet Republicans are comparing it to the January 6th Insurrection.

Equivocation.

Again.

Is anyone surprised this is from the Republicans?