Going Too Far

(Photo from The Daily Yonder: Keep It Rural)

The political drama in the state where I vote as an American expat is about more than politics. Where? You guessed it: Tennessee, the state ranked as least democratic within the USA.

Summary of Recent TN Events

A mass shooting occurred at a school in Nashville, the state’s capitol city. People died. It was just another mass shooting, a common occurrence in the USA, and as such events go its number of fatalities was low… but for some reason this one struck a chord.

Thousands of people marched to the capitol to call for improved gun control. Republicans have a supermajority in Tennessee. They ignored the protesters.

The protest spilled into the state House of Representatives. Three Democratic reps essentially led the portion in the House it from the floor, a couple of them using a bullhorn. Republicans initiated procedures to expel them from the House. They voted to expel the two who are young Black men, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson. The third of the Tennessee Three, Gloria Johnson, is a middle aged white woman. She held her seat by one vote.

Ostensibly the expulsion efforts were due to the Tennessee Three not adhering to House rules. Bear in mind that the Speaker had already made it clear he didn’t want to respond to the protesters, so getting permission to speak on the floor about it was unlikely.

Also bear in mind that various Republican members of the House have ignored rules too. The current top example? Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton and his wife bought a $600,000 house in Nashville and moved there. Sexton no longer lives in the district he supposedly represents, although the rules say he must, or must at least intend to return to living there. Not many people spend that much money on a second home. He has been claiming $313/day in expenses to commute to his district without actually commuting, racking up a total of nearly $100k that way. He’s only one of several in his party who have broken House rules, often far more severely than the Tennessee three. Have there been consequences? For Republicans, no.

Gunshots were fired into the home of the founder of the Tennessee Holler (motto: always YELL the truth), the media reporting in the most detail about all of this.

The Nashville council voted unanimously to appoint Justin Jones as the interim holder of his vacated seat in the House. Then the Shelby County commission did the same for Justin Pearson, with its Republican members choosing not to attend the meeting.

Current Status

The Tennessee Three are all in the House after all. The Tennessee Holler looks heroic for its coverage in the face of murderous threats.

Republicans in Tennessee have drawn national scrutiny upon themselves in the worst way. In response, Governor Bill Lee hastily signed an executive order tightened gun control. The order requires criminal history and court mental health information to be entered into the Tennessee Instant Check System or sent to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation within 72 hours. Those agencies are ordered report within 60 days to the governor's office and state legislature about how procedures for submitting such data can be improved. The move didn’t override the prominence of the Tennessee Three, so it did not relieve pressure on the state’s Republicans. They still look as ugly as sin.

Larger Lessons

Does this hold any lessons for the rest of us? Oh yes, it certainly does!

This is what happens when anyone with a focused ideological agenda gets so much power that they believe they can do whatever they want with impunity.

To be clear, it doesn’t happen only in politics. I’ve seen it in business and small community organizations too. It also doesn’t happen only when one particular end of a spectrum gets so much power. No matter who it is, they face a compelling temptation to go farther with their agenda than the public is willing to tolerate. If they do so, eventually they come up against the immense power of mass public rejection.

The agenda can be doing too much for too many faster than society is willing to go. But it is certainly at its most nasty when the group with so much power is intent on quashing everyone else, which is what has been happening in Tennessee.

It doesn’t always happen. Many years ago, when I won a Board seat in the National Organization for Women, my mentor’s first and most important advice was about not walking into this trap. This included her prediction that how my term unfolded would depend more on whether I was a gracious winner than on whether my opponents were gracious losers.

As I carried on, I developed my own corollary: Never leave a potentially significant adversary with nothing left to lose, because that’s when they become most dangerous.

There are plenty of other ways to express it. “Winner takes all” can be the very attitude that ensures the winner will end up losing it all.

It’s a difficult temptation to resist. When you’ve decisively gained control, it’s a giddy feeling. You want to grasp the reins with both hands and do everything you’ve been yearning to do. That’s what Tennessee Republicans have been doing. They’re learning that running roughshod over everyone else goes too far. Do as they’ve done and you’ll also reach a point where you have the equivalent of thousands of protesters on your front steps, just like they do.

Gracious winners get to stay in leadership positions longer by exerting the self-discipline to not go too far too fast in exclusively their favored direction. They set a pace other people can live with. More importantly, ultimately they can get more done than ungracious winners, precisely because of allowing people they disagree with to do a few things too so everyone feels the satisfaction of making some progress.

I’ve waited a long time to see Tennessee begin to taste this lesson.

May you never have to learn it the hard way like Tennessee Republicans are learning it.