Tennessee Republicans live up to state’s hateful legacy by expelling 2 Democrats | Opinion

C’mon, doesn’t everyone know that the only polite response to the endless slaughter of American schoolchildren is silence and inaction?

And of course we know, too, that nothing is more important than decorum to the party that continues to whitewash the Jan. 6 actions of those who assaulted 140 police officers, chanted “hang Mike Pence!” and left behind, as Nancy Pelosi put it that day, “the poo poo that they’re making all over” the U.S. Capitol.

Young and not-young Tennesseeans from all over the state have been protesting, just as James Madison intended, ever since six people, including three 9-year-olds, were shot to death at a private Christian school in Nashville last month.

According to Tennessee’s Republican House Speaker, Cameron Sexton, protests demanding action on gun violence at the state Capitol on March 30 were “at least equivalent, maybe worse,” than anything that happened in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.

Not exactly: The Tennessean reported that during the loud but peaceful protests that so offended Republican lawmakers, no demonstrators broke into the Capitol, no one was arrested or injured, and no property was damaged.

Feelings were hurt, though, so the Republicans, who did not appreciate having to walk past seething constituents, none of whom seemed to have a check in hand, lashed out by expelling the two Black members who had broken with protocol by — I hope you’re prepared to hear about this shocking affront — raising their voices, right on the House floor, along with the anti-AR-15 protesters outside the chamber.

Then, to erase any doubt about whether this expulsion was exactly as racial as it looked, they voted against removing a white woman who had done the same thing. A legislative lynching some called it, because that’s what it was.

In booting Democratic Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, the state where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated 55 years ago this month lived up to that hateful legacy.

“I recognize that it’s not just about expelling me, but it’s about expelling the people,” Jones said. “But your action will do the exact opposite. It will galvanize them.” Let’s hope so.

There was panic in plain view when the House voted that Pearson and Jones “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor” to the House, and the dishonor was not theirs.

They were trying to incite violence, Sexton said, apparently without irony and by his own admission without proof.

What violence? Sexton said that some members who had to leave the chamber to use the bathroom were spit on as they passed protesters in the gallery outside. Only, anyone out there who was spitting mad wasn’t furious because three lawmakers had chanted along with them, but because others were refusing to take action to limit the possession of weapons of war.

What exactly did these now former members of the Legislature do that required their colleagues to overturn the will of the voters who put them there?

Jones held a sign that read “Protect kids, not guns,” and shouted “No action, no peace!” into a megaphone. Pearson then spoke through the megaphone, too. “Enough is enough,” he said.

After the vote to expel them but not Rep. Gloria Johnson, a white former teacher who lost a student to gun violence, some Republicans explained that the difference was that she had not used the megaphone. Johnson herself did not see it that way: “It might have to do with the color of our skin.”

All mention of Jones and Pearson was immediately scrubbed from the Tennessee House website, but what happened in Nashville this week will be taught in history class, hopefully in the lesson on how our cult of gun worship finally ended.

This story was originally published April 7, 2023 at 12:39 PM.