A year after the Covenant school shooting in Nashville – and a mass movement for gun control – Republicans have accelerated their attacks on democratic norms

Conservative domination – maintained by gerrymandered districts, disenfranchised voters and an increasing sense of political despair – insulates Tennessee Republicans from political consequences for unpopular decisions. Challenged in public by increasing activism on the left and apocalyptic rhetoric on the right, Tennessee Republicans stopped just chipping away at democratic norms and began hammering full-on like coalminers on Rocky Top.

Republicans are increasingly targeting municipal government. In the wake of the fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols in 2023, Memphis and other communities created police oversight boards with the power to investigate and punish misconduct. Last week, Tennessee’s governor, Bill Lee, signed legislation blocking those boards and any local ordinance that limits the ability of a law enforcement agency to take all necessary steps “to prevent and detect crime and apprehend criminal offenders”.

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    The murder of six people at a church school in an affluent, largely white enclave of Tennessee’s largest city one year ago sparked a mass protest movement for gun control by Nashville parents.

    Challenged in public by increasing activism on the left and apocalyptic rhetoric on the right, Tennessee Republicans stopped just chipping away at democratic norms and began hammering full-on like coalminers on Rocky Top.

    Jim Cooper, one of the last Blue Dog Democrats, was replaced in 2022 by Andy Ogles, a Freedom Caucus Republican who denies that Joe Biden fairly won the 2020 election and was one of 19 lawmakers to initially break against Kevin McCarthy’s speakership in 2023.

    Outside the capitol, thousands of people, including traditionally Republican voters, attended rallies, said Maryam Abolfazli, a 45-year-old international development executive who founded the civic engagement non-profit Rise and Shine Tennessee after the shootings.

    At a hearing in August, Tennessee highway patrol officers began dragging out women holding up signs that said “1 KID > ALL THE GUNS” at the order of the civil justice subcommittee chair, Lowell Russell.

    Last week, Lee signed legislation blocking those boards and any local ordinance that limits the ability of a law enforcement agency to take all necessary steps “to prevent and detect crime and apprehend criminal offenders”.

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