The State of Progressive Politics in Tennessee | City Limits

Following gerrymandering led by a Republican supermajority in the state legislature, Nashville is now, congressionally talking, a crimson metropolis regardless of its voters leaning blue.

Within the seventh Congressional District, Nashville group chief Odessa Kelly misplaced to Republican incumbent Rep. Mark Inexperienced of Clarksville. Backed by the same group that has supported members of “The Squad”  — a gaggle of progressive Democratic Home of Consultant members together with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar — Kelly ran on a marketing campaign centered on the wants of on a regular basis Nashvillians and uplifting the working class. Regardless of her 22-point loss in the redrawn 7th, the momentum she managed to construct indicated that whereas there’s a variety of work to be completed, progressive politics should not essentially a misplaced trigger in Tennessee.

“I knew it was going to be an uphill battle, however rattling it, somebody has obtained to have the ability to exit and converse reality to energy and provides an correct, knowledgeable clarification of what’s occurring to the thousands and thousands of working-class people throughout the state of Tennessee,” Kelly tells the Scene.

Kelly was born and raised in Nashville and has labored in Metro Parks as a group recreation chief. She co-founded group engagement and social justice nonprofit Stand Up Nashville, is the mom of two youngsters and is brazenly homosexual, a rarity for congressional candidates within the South. 

Reasonably than throwing up her arms and going dwelling, she took the midterm outcomes as an indication that there’s extra work to be completed. After taking a while to recuperate, Kelly is already turning her eye towards points inside the metropolis — in our interview, she mentions the rapidly progressing Titans stadium deal. Again in 2018, Kelly and Stand Up Nashville helped negotiate a deal with Nashville SC to incorporate group advantages within the growth of the soccer group’s stadium, Geodis Park.

“Not a lot of what occurred was shocking,” says Jason Freeman, a neighborhood labor chief and former Democratic Occasion official who labored on Kelly’s marketing campaign. “No matter sort of candidates you’re going to have working in Tennessee, there are just a few elementary issues that we have now to work on if we’re going to be aggressive. We don’t know the political make-up of Tennessee as a result of 1 in 5 African Individuals are disenfranchised from voting. Now we have among the many most restrictive voting provisions within the nation.”

Freeman is the political director for SEIU Native 205, a union representing public- and private-sector staff throughout Tennessee. He says voting is the bare-minimum requirement for being a participant in democracy, and that as a way to see any actual political change, people who find themselves voting must get extra concerned with their communities. 

“Now we have to have way more individuals engaged within the course of as a way to prove their associates, their neighbors, their group members,” he says. “Now we have to not be afraid to speak to individuals we don’t know, and have conversations with them.”

Within the lead-up to the midterm election, Republican politicians turned their focus towards opposing transgender well being care and rights, a difficulty for which Nashville has become a battleground. Following election evening, the Republicans within the state legislature introduced their first bill of the 2023 legislative session — which doesn’t even begin till Jan. 10. The invoice goals to ban gender-affirming remedy for minors.

“The appropriate wing could be very engaged within the culture-war stuff,” says District 5 Metro Councilmember Sean Parker, who additionally labored on Kelly’s marketing campaign. “And when that tradition warfare immediately targets my neighbors, my constituents, my family members? I don’t have any selection however to face up and reply to that. I’d quite be engaged on housing points. I’d quite be engaged on having high quality job alternatives for individuals. However if you happen to’re coming to trans of us, I’m going to do my finest to insert myself in your approach.” 

Whereas points corresponding to housing insecurity and labor have an effect on numerous on a regular basis Tennesseans, assaults on trans well being care and drag shows are inclined to make splashier headlines. In addition they drive a wedge between individuals who would doubtless profit from lots of the similar insurance policies. 

“After we preserve individuals dwelling in a state of desperation, or dwelling examine to examine and solely have the capability to see what’s in entrance of them within the second to maneuver to the following day, we take away any functionality for us to essentially have the time to soak up the issues which might be occurring round us,” says Kelly. “When some of these issues occur, what we don’t take note of are the 20, 25, 30 different payments which might be truly destroying high quality of life for on a regular basis, regular working-class people within the state of Tennessee.”

Parker attended the counter-protest to right-wing pundit Matt Walsh’s anti-trans protest again in October. He says in the course of the protest, conservative determine Robby Starbuck — who, satirically sufficient, is from California — turned to the counter-protesters and stated, “Get these transferring vehicles prepared, as a result of this isn’t the state for you.” However Parker feels in a different way. 

“Rising up, of us would jokingly say, ‘Tennessee, to remain or flee,’ ” he says. “And clearly I stayed; all my family and friends stayed too. And the notion that simply by means of all this hateful laws and assaults on marginalized individuals, they’re going to eliminate anyone that disagrees with them? It’s simply not going to occur. And it’s simply going to result in a bunch of distress within the meantime.”