Dec 02, 2025
The president won the state’s seventh district by 22 points last year, but home-field advantage doesn’t seem to be working this time.
All politics is local. So famously said the late Thomas P. O’Neill of North Cambridge in the Commonwealth. (God save it!) This is perhaps the most famous axiom of our politics and just about the only political axiom that doesn’t begin with the phrase “To the best of my recollection…” So it was with Tuesday night’s surprisingly close special congressional election in the seventh district in Tennessee. It is a district that the president carried by 22 percentage points last year but in which Democrat Aftyn Behn is locked in a close race against Republican Matt Van Epps. Naturally, in a social-media tirade, the president jumped in with both feet and both tiny hands. From the Hill:
“I am asking all America First Patriots in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, who haven’t voted yet, to please GET OUT AND VOTE on Election Day, Tuesday, December 2nd, for a phenomenal Candidate, Matt Van Epps, Matt is fighting against a woman who hates Christianity, will take away your guns, wants Open Borders, Transgender for everybody, men in women’s sports, and openly disdains Country music. She said all of these things precisely, and without question—IT’S ON TAPE!”
Okay, stay with me here. It seems that, back in 2020, on a podcast called “Grits,” because of course it was, Behn said:
“I’ve been heavily involved in the Nashville mayoral race because I hate this city, I hate the bachelorettes, I hate the pedal taverns, I hate country music. I hate all the things that make Nashville apparently an ‘it city’ to the rest of the country.”
To be entirely fair, this was fairly impolitic politics on Behn’s part, and she has spent considerable time during this campaign walking these statements back. However, on further reflection, she wasn’t wrong about much. Pedal taverns are a monumental pain in the ass. (Picture sockless white people swilling margaritas and pedaling themselves into coronary occlusions while drivers swerve to avoid both collisions and falling into the Cumberland.) And the only country music worth a damn comes from Austin anyway.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a69611289/tennessee-seventh-district-trump
What’s so interesting about this election? Because it’s a close race between the Republican and Democrat candidates. And, it’s in a deep red part of a red state. Even if Van Epps wins, which he probably will, the fact that it’s such a close race speaks volumes about the crumbling world of maga. In Taco’s ideal world, this race should be a trouncing for the Democrats, but it’s too close for comfort being one for the Republicans. Even Taco has the necessary brain cells to know that this is not a good thing for him and his puppets of the GOP.
As we know, anything bad for Taco and his gang is good for the country, the free world, and Ukraine. Next year we’ll see a positive change in the country, during the midterms.
“and openly disdains Country music”
She has taste then.