I posted this on May 26, right after the end of the meeting when the TNDP Executive Committee, on which I served, voted to remove our former Treasurer from the EC.
This is going to be a long post, but it may be the most important one I’ve ever made so I entreat you to read to the end. “tl/dr” is part of the reason this country’s in the shape it’s in.
For three years, I have had the privilege of serving as executive committeeman, representing district 15 on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party (EC of the TNDP). That is usually a boring, quiet job, but for the past month it has not been. As many of you reading this may know, we recently voted to remove Carol Abney as treasurer of the state party. Many Democrats throughout the state are friends and admirers of Carol, and were extremely frustrated when members of the EC could not immediately provide details for why this happened, and still cannot in certain areas. This is partially because the details of executive session meetings, per Roberts Rules of Order, must be kept confidential unless and until the body votes to do otherwise, and it is partially because it involved grievance petition details that, to protect the process and everyone involved, MUST be kept anonymous and completely confidential or else aggrieved people in the future will be afraid to come forward. Some of the relevant information did get leaked -selectively and in a misleading manner, to benefit Ms. Abney, whose supporters have come to her defense and, essentially, called for Democrats to declare war on the state party. They have framed the situation as the state party holding backroom secret meetings as part of some immoral conspiracy to come after her.
Because she has been free to present her side and our hands have been tied to explain or defend ourselves, the party has been in an uproar for the whole month of March, with many people relentlessly attacking the state party. This has continued even after the EC voted Sunday to allow members, in a limited way, to engage with our constituents about the findings against her. I hesitate to restate those here, as this post is not actually about her, but I can tell you this: according to Tennessee law, one can have multiple residences, but only one primary residence for voting purposes. And, also according to state law, that residence can NOT be commercially zoned. I can also tell you that an EC member leaking confidential information to third parties, according to bylaws, is grounds for removal from the EC, especially if it pertains to grievance petitions.
For the last week-and-a-half, the rhetoric against the state party has been deafening. My entire spring break consisted of receiving dozens and dozens of messages from people in my district, many of whom I’ve known for years and considered friends, berating me and accusing me in the harshest terms of all manner of foul things, including corruption and taking bribes or of just being stupid and gullible. There have also been many, many public statements on social media along the same lines, from people who had not been given the full picture by the EC (by necessity) or were given a misleading picture from other quarters (by design). And I have not been able to defend myself. The same thing has been experienced by dozens of my fellow EC members. It has been so relentless and the stress so great that several times in the last week I’ve had to take nitro pills for my heart condition, something I’d not had to do in over a year, not even when I was receiving death threats from MAGA extremists. At the same time I received only a tiny number of reassuring messages, and none publicly. Because the EC is still limited in the extent we are allowed to address people’s questions or the level of detail we are able to provide -both to protect the grievance process and to protect ourselves from threatened lawsuits -almost no one (neither aggressive detractors nor sincerely concerned people) is satisfied, and the rhetoric has not abated. If anything, it will soon be ratcheting up since a vote was taken tonight to remove Ms. Abney from the EC completely on the basis of her leaking confidential information. For the small number of EC members like myself who are facing a contested election to keep our positions, it will be even more intense now.
This type of internal strife is a godsend to Republicans, and a grave threat to every Democrat running for office. My family is not able to weather this atmosphere without relief until the election in August. It is a strain on our emotional health and a literal threat to my physical health.
Six months ago, my political column in the local newspaper was canceled due to the large number of credible death threats I received in the week after Charlie Kirk’s murder. The editor made that decision purely out of concern for my well-being, knowing me well and knowing I would never back down and allow myself to be silenced by bullies, even with threats to my life. I’ve continued to speak out in any way I could (and in fact my newspaper column is starting back up very soon). The thing is, though -I was able to take security measures to defend my family against would-be MAGA assassins, and their threats only made me bolder, but I was not prepared -and I don’t know how to be prepared -for metaphorical assassins on my own side, including some of my own friends. Further, I do not want to be responsible -even to a tiny degree -for any further heated division that threatens my party and the campaigns of so many good people who have had the courage to step up and run for office as Democrats in our present environment.
My favorite movie has always been High Noon. It taught me many valuable lessons the first time I saw it at age eight. You have to do what you know is right and you have to fulfill your civic duties and honor your oath of office, even if the whole town is against you. Even if it comes at great personal cost to yourself. And you have to defend your community, even when your community refuses to defend you. I have endeavored to live my life by those principles. You have no idea how much I have yearned to tell my side of the story, to tell the whole truth about this situation -but my oath and my duty prevented me, and through all of this I have honored them.
And now, like Gary Cooper’s Marshal Will Kane, the job is finished and I have to take off the badge. I do not need a title to serve my community and the principles of my party, and it is unsustainable for me to hold onto it under these circumstances. Therefore, after the vote to expel Abney, I submitted my resignation to the state chair, as I said last week I would do if we were ultimately unable to provide people with the answers they demand. This is not a reflection on Chair Campbell or the state party, who throughout this have acted on their conscience and dedication to their oaths and duty.
I told Carol Abney weeks ago, and others on the EC have told her since: if there is anything in your life whatsoever that could be used by the opposition to attack us, or cause division in a time when we need unity, you should let go of your concerns for your own benefit (and your stubborn pride) and quietly resign rather than risk facilitating harm to the party and its candidates. That is what she should have done then; it’s what she should be doing now. Instead, she has said repeatedly that if things did not go her way she would burn this party to the ground. She has been trying to do exactly that, and is no doubt doubling her efforts at it at this very moment. It would be hypocritical of me to ask something of Carol Abney I would not do myself. I am not willing to sacrifice my party and its principles for my own comfort or advantage. I am willing to sacrifice myself instead, in hopes such a dramatic action will make some people step back and consider the seriousness of the situation. I have kept my oath, and am now willing to relinquish it if so doing enables me to freely say these things today and help, at least a little, to extinguish this dangerous fire that I did not start and which threatens us all.
One of my greatest personal heroes has always been Congressman Davy Crockett of Tennessee. Not for the Alamo, but for the fact he sacrificed his political career to oppose Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal policy. His lifelong motto was “Make sure you’re right, then go ahead.” Too many people either skip straight to the “go ahead” part without making sure they’re right, or know they’re right and are afraid to go ahead. I refuse to be one of those people.
I do want to share with you, though, something I have realized after all of this. While many of the people angry at the party and at me have been longtime friends of Carol Abney, I was struck by how many of them barely knew her or had never met her at all. This leads me to believe it was not all about Carol. I think the wildfire intensity of it -especially from rural Democrats -is a sign that they were already having bitter feelings toward the party because they felt we had been ignoring them or leaving them behind, and to them this seemed like just another betrayal, and the seeming blanket of secrecy around it only further reinforced that feeling, and it all came gushing out. I can see that, and I can understand it. We’ve been talking a big game about reaching out to rural counties this past year and you haven’t seen results yet -but many of you do know that Carol is a champion of rural causes. We have been working on some things, that I think are very promising and that I’ve had a hand in, but we’re just starting to get them off the ground. The party needs to try harder, and to make every county party and every member of it feel seen, heard, and valued, especially now that we have all 95 counties organized for the first time in forever. They need to look for more ways to avoid making you feel like you’re in the dark. But what we’ve seen these past weeks? The vitriol and outright hatred? That’s not how to get it done. That is playing into our opponents’ hands.
So now, please. Let’s all take a deep breath and calm down.
Let’s return our attention and our energy to where it should be: opposing Donald Trump’s policies and what he has turned the Republican Party into. Let’s not allow anyone to lead us down the road of making our party like his, with conspiracy theories and cries of fake news, all designed to protect the interests of a selfish few. Put down the torches and pitchforks.
Thank you to those who have supported me through all of this.
And thank you, sincerely, to all of you who supported me before this, even if you have not done so the last couple of weeks. It has been an honor to serve you to the best of my ability, and I did not want to stop. Perhaps I will be able to do so again -I hope so.
I leave you with a few Cherokee words that mean a lot to me. Stiyu -have courage. And another: Gadugi, the sacred obligation to all work together for the good of everyone. And one I have striven to live by: duyukdv. Harmony and balance, and the way of goodness and rightness.
And with an English word that has always meant a lot to the left: solidarity.
Finally, one more Cherokee word. What they say instead of goodbye.
Dodadagohvi. We will see each other again.
