The Tennessee Republican Party has become the party of the Big Lies. First, there was
the big lie that the 2020 Presidential election was fraught with fraud and was stolen from the
Republican nominee. Practically every elected Republican in the state perpetuated this lie; some
refusing to this date to acknowledge that President Biden won the election. This notwithstanding
the fact that officials appointed by former President Trump to monitor the election have stated
the presidential election was the most secure election in the history of presidential elections.
In addition to perpetuating “The Big Lie,” Republican leaders in the state refused to
acknowledge the seriousness of the Covid-19 pandemic; refused to encourage face coverings and
refused to enforce mask mandates or encourage citizens to take the vaccines developed at warp
speed to fight the deadly virus.
If spreading the big lie about the election was not enough, Republican members of the
General Assembly are telling other big lies and otherwise attempting to legislate the cancellation
of historical truths. Rep. John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge, is spearheading legislation that would forbid
teaching about racism, inequality, and racial and sexist privilege. Teaching the existence, past
and present, of racism and racial privilege would result in the loss of federal funding for
Tennessee’s public and charter schools. To push his bill, Rep. Ragan relies on a proven
Republican strategy of demonizing those who might oppose his bill; name calling. Those who
oppose Rep. Ragan’s big lie are characterized as “hucksters,” “charlatans,” and “useful idiots
peddling identity politics.”
If the big lies about the presidential election and no racism are not enough, Republican
Representative Justin Lafferty of Knoxville recently stated on the House floor that the three-
fifths compromise to the U.S. Constitution was designed to end slavery. Perhaps this is the
biggest lie of all the Republican lies. The purpose of the compromise was to give slaveholding
states additional population numbers in order to give the southern states greater representation in
Congress, and accordingly, more electoral college votes.
Tennesseans deserve good, decent, honorable government led by good, decent, honest
representatives, and not big lies and a cancel culture that seeks to deny the truth and cause
constituents to be intellectually illiterate.
