The Power of Fusion Politics on Display in Nashville

This is one of the video clips from Tennessee that went a bit viral on Twitter last week: 

There is more love and compassion in this clip of @Justinjpearson comforting a Covenant Mom than anything I’ve seen come out of the state legislature in a decade

Not only do we need Justin reappointed immediately, we need a dozen more just like himpic.twitter.com/Tc1NqIXzWN

— Brad Batt for TN State Sanity ✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾 (@bradbatt) April 7, 2023 

My first reaction was to think about how Rev. William Barber has been talking about something called "fusion politics" for years now. Here's what he said about that during a speech in 2014:

Back then 146 years ago blacks and whites came together. In the south! And they understood the fusion between lifting up the former slaves, and how it intersected with the preservation of the south and the nation…

In 1868 we see this moral fusion language and it formed the framework for reconstruction. Here’s what they fought for with this fusion movement: voting rights, public education, labor, health care, equal protection, fair tax policy, good of the whole and that kind of agenda reshaped the south and it reshaped the country. It reshaped the world.

But it also brought a vicious backlash…

A group arose that called themselves the redemption movement and it was rooted in the extreme philosophy of immoral deconstruction and they fought back. They were moved by fear. Fear that their world was being taken over. Fear of a more just society. Fear of a more perfect union. They were radical racists and they began a process of immoral deconstruction. They began a campaign of fear and divide.

Sound familiar? Barber goes on to describe the second reconstruction that resulted in the passage of our civil rights laws and the end of Jim Crow, which was followed by the assassination of it’s leaders and the backlash unleashed by the Republican Southern Strategy. He posits that we are now in the midst of a third reconstruction that was sparked by the election of Barack Obama. But it wasn’t simply about the election of our first African American president (emphasis mine).

Again it is because the movement in some ways was signaled by the 2008 election of President Obama. Now it wasn’t so much the president, as powerful and as hopeful as we’ve been about that. But what signaled that we were in the possibility of a third reconstruction was the emergence of a new majority electorate, especially in southern states.

The backlash to a potential "new majority electorate" is going on in red states all over the country - including Tennessee. 

What the video up above demonstrates is the fusion politics of a white mother in an emotional embrace with a young Black man who was just silenced for standing with her to protect her children...in a southern state. 

In watching the student protests that led to the expulsion of Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, I noticed that most of the participants were white - not surprising in a state where the population is 73% white.

But I'll bet that these students (and their parents) have all noticed who is standing with them to protect them from gun violence...it's the Black guys who experienced a racist backlash from Tennessee Republicans for doing so. That creates a powerful opening for fusion politics.

 Much has been written about how successful Democrats have been lately in running on the issues of women's reproductive choice and defending democracy. I'd suggest that the party should add gun reform to that list. All three have the potential to build on the power of fusion politics - even in southern states.