Gloria Johnson Is Smart, Cool, Talks About Abortion Out Loud. Doth Tennessee Dare Make This Non-Lunatic A Senator?
She's gonna win or scare the shit out of MAGA trying.
Tennessee state Rep. Gloria Johnson became famous last year as one of the so-called “Tennessee Three,” Democratic members of the Legislature who committed the unspeakable crime of inadequately curtsying to the white Republican lawmakin’ men who were hard at work preserving the constitutional rights of guns to kill people, and for people to kill people — adults, children, babies, whatever — with guns. Tennessee’s elected Republicans will side with the gun every time.
Did we mention Nashville had just had a horrific school shooting about 15 minutes away from the state Capitol, at a Christian school called Covenant, where lots of Nashville’s moneyed Republicans send their kids? Like, literally a week before? Many of those parents were there, weeping, begging for their elected officials to do something. A video of Nashville Rep. Justin Jones hugging one of the Covenant moms went viral.
What elected racist white Republicans did in response was they expelled two of the Tennessee Three from the Lege (Jones and Memphis Rep. Justin Pearson). Johnson has been forthright from the beginning that she, a white woman who represents Knoxville, was treated differently from the two other members she joined in refusing to kiss white patriarchy’s holy grundle, and she’s said loudly and often that it just might have been because the other two are Black. (Jones and Pearson were voted back in by their constituents as soon as it was legally possible.)
The whole thing was a horrifying stunt, and it was broadcast live to a nation that couldn’t look away. Many people think it might’ve been a turning point in Tennessee politics. It turned Jones, Pearson, and Johnson into stars.
Gloria Johnson is running for the US Senate against incumbent and home ec major Marsha Blackburn, an absolute lunatic who claims Supreme Court rulings like 1965’s Griswold v. Connecticut “confuse” Tennesseans. Yep, that’s the one that allowed married couples to make sex upon each other without getting pregnant, by using contraception.
Blackburn is the nutcase who, while she was in the US House of Representatives, led a ridiculous investigation into Planned Parenthood selling fetus parts out of the backs of F150s. Planned Parenthood was not doing that, but right-wing anti-abortion extremists said they were, and that’s who Blackburn believed, because on top of the extremism, she’s kind of a dipshit. Obviously she supports a full national abortion ban now that the illegitimate partisan hack Supreme Court has cleared the way with Dobbs.
We could talk all day about what useless garbage Blackburn is — hate her hate her oh God we hate her — but instead we’ll get to the point, which is that yr Wonkette got to meet Johnson last night at a fundraiser in Memphis. Let us tell you, she is the real deal, and she is confident that if Tennesseans — all Tennesseans — come out to vote, we can send Blackburn straight to hell, or at least back home to wherever the hell she lives.
Johnson called Tennessee’s Legislature a “supermajority gone wild,” and obviously she knows firsthand. But she cited a poll that came out from Vanderbilt University this week that suggests Tennesseans might not be into that particular kink these days.
The headline on that poll? MAJORITY OF TENNESSEE VOTERS NOW PRO-CHOICE. (Abortion is of course banned in Tennessee post-Dobbs.)
Tennessee voters like IVF, they don’t think IVF embryos are people, and they’re cool with gay couples using it to have kids. Tennessee voters like common sense gun reform. Tennessee voters would like the freedom to smoke legal weed, to the tune of 60 percent.
Oh yeah, and the poll says Gloria Johnson is beating Marsha Blackburn, at least among women, 49 to 43. (Statewide, the poll came out 51-40 Blackburn, because Tennessee men are trash.*)
This is obviously a turnout race, so at the fundraiser we were glad to witness the degree to which Johnson isn’t afraid to talk about the things she knows voters (women, and some good Tennessee men, who do exist) are mad about. For instance, abortion, and — you guessed it! — gun violence. We’ll focus here on what she said about abortion.
“Forcing 10-year-olds to carry a pregnancy is barbaric,” said Johnson last night. She emphasized that abortion exceptions aren’t adequate in her eyes, and also that “codify Roe” is not the answer to protecting abortion nationwide. But she recalled that when she tried to simply do something to protect little tiny children who end up pregnant, the Tennessee Republican supermajority couldn’t even be bothered to care about that.
“Women and girls are in danger in Tennessee,” she told us. She said musicians she’s met — and Tennessee is full of those — have told her that they’re telling touring acts, if you have pregnant women on tour, don’t play in Tennessee. It’s not safe for pregnant people. She personally knows three OB-GYNs who have left the state.
When she meets Republicans at her campaign events, and she said she’s meeting a lot of them, what’s brought them there? Dobbs and gun violence, she said.
This is a candidate who understands how angry people out there really are.
Could this be the year when Tennessee shocks the nation and elects a Democrat to the Senate? We don’t know, and Johnson doesn’t either. But she believes it’s possible, and she also believes that even if she only managed to come really, really close, it would scare the everloving shit out of elected MAGA Republicans.
So yeah, we’re gonna tell you to go support her, and that moreover now is the time to tune in on all these Senate races that need your help. (Cough cough, Gallego!) You want to do something federal to protect abortion and gun violence? We have to win back the House, keep the presidency and expand margins in the Senate.
Throwing a hilarious curveball directly at MAGA’s face out of deep red Tennessee sure would be a fun way to contribute to that process.
*SIDENOTE ON THAT POLL: Donald Trump only managed 47 percent support. In Tennessee. That’s real fuckin’ tepid, for Tennessee. We are just saying.
PREVIOUSLY IN TENNESSEE!
Evan Hurst on Twitter right here.
@evanjosephhurst on Threads!
I have profiles those other places but I think I forgot how to log on.
If you're shopping on Amazon anyway, this portal gives us a small commission.
Leave it all out on the road and vote for Johnson, I say. As this is surely a voter suppression regime, Tennesseeans check your voter registration and have your voting plan together for the fall! Each one teach one and bring 'em to the polls!
Mount up!
Fun fact (maybe not so fun). Tennessee is 51st in voter turnout.
In my county where Chattanooga is, we have dems in every single race, no republican is running unopposed for the first time in decades.
I've met Gloria, she's a force!