Transcript: Why Trump Is Losing Ground Even in This Deep-Red State
Bacon: It wanted to be a model for the country, is what you’re getting at here?
Behn: Yeah. A model of harshness.
Bacon: Yes. OK.
Behn: Yes. And some of these—a lot of the legislation—is already federally enacted. Yeah. But who knows how it’s going to materialize in the Tennessee legislature. And once again, all of this is a distraction because they have not lowered grocery prices. They have not made housing more affordable. And they’re trying to create a spectacle over here so you are not paying attention to the fact that they have not delivered for Tennessee families.
Bacon: Let me finish on why is it important—I assume most of our audience, those people watching don’t live in a red state, don’t live in a gerrymandered state—why is it important that people across the country know what’s going on in a place like Tennessee where the policies are not going to go the way we want them to and is going to be a long time? What can we—is it important? And then two, what can they do if you’re not in Tennessee?
Behn: An excellent case study of this is the ban on gender-affirming care nationally. It started in Tennessee. They passed a bill to ban gender-affirming care. Our attorney general then took it all the way to the Supreme Court, and they actually sent out the attorney general’s office—sent out an email to the entire legislature inviting us to the tailgate to watch the oral arguments in which they would take healthcare away from the most vulnerable kids in our country. Our leaders went to D.C.—they also tailgated.
And so what is happening here could happen to you next. And so I know, however you think about the South, as W.E.B. Du Bois once said, As goes the South, so goes the nation—and it’s true. And we are fighting. Whatever you think you are dealing with in your blue state … It is suffocating to live under the policies that are being enacted here.
And please continue to invest in organizations and organizers like myself that really are thinking forward and thinking about the next 10 years of what’s going to happen and taking advantage.
Because once again, things are already bad, they’re going to get worse. You need organizers and thought leaders like myself that understand how to take advantage of the crises, the compounded crises we’re going to face in order to create opportunity to improve and make Tennessee a better place to live.
Bacon: Aftyn, great to see you. Thanks for the great answer to finish there. I appreciate you, and it was a great campaign—congratulations on that. I hope, and I think we’ll be tuning in to other things you do in the future. See you soon.
Behn: OK. Thank you. Bye-bye.
