Right Flight: Williamson County Is a Hotbed of Far-Right Political Power | Cover Story

Williamson County is the wealthiest county in Tennessee, and among the wealthiest in the nation. It’s home to celebrities, multimillion-dollar corporate headquarters and megachurches — as well as some of the most powerful and influential Republican politicians in the state, who are guiding Tennessee further into a right-wing reality. Among their ranks are Gov. Bill Lee, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn and state Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, who have worked to shape the state in the name of “conservative family values.”

Blackburn founded the Williamson County Young Republicans and served as the chair for the Williamson County Republican Party from 1989 to 1991. She served in the Tennessee Senate and later in the U.S. House of Representatives prior to her election to the U.S. Senate in 2018. She’s a favorite of Republican supporters and donors in Williamson County, but rarely appears in front of constituents who aren’t all-in on the GOP agenda, having faced public criticism at her last town hall in 2017.

She is also a die-hard supporter of former President Donald Trump, and has already joined fellow U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty in endorsing Trump in his 2024 bid to return to the White House. Blackburn has preached party unity, both locally and nationally, as key to the success of the GOP, saying in 2020, “Williamson County is what holds that great, red wall together” — a sentiment she reiterated last month when speaking at a Republican Women of Williamson County meeting in Franklin. The unity behind Trump remains strong despite evidence that Blackburn, Hagerty and Tennessee’s U.S. Rep. Mark Green might have been far more informed about, if not involved in, the former president’s attempts to illegally stay in office after losing the 2020 election — culminating in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Many local Republican Party officials and voters also expressed their belief that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump, with some taking part in numerous “Stop the Steal” rallies throughout Middle Tennessee. In 2022, Blackburn, Green and Hagerty all appeared at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Policy Conference in Nashville, where Trump dismissed evidence of the coup attempt.

In 2020, Franklin-based security consultation firm Atlas Aegis was accused of attempting to deploy former special forces personnel to intimidate voters in Minnesota on Election Day, a plan that was canceled after it was challenged in court. That year also brought unfounded fears and rumors of planned riots by “Antifa” in the streets of Franklin and surrounding communities as community members across Williamson County took part in numerous protests against racial injustice following the murder of George Floyd. Several of the peaceful protests in Williamson County were met with hecklers, middle fingers, verbal threats of violence, racial slurs and other forms of intimidation from counter-protesters.

In 2022, Blackburn and Johnson participated in an anti-trans rally in Nashville organized by right-wing media figure Matt Walsh. Johnson, of Franklin, made good on his promise at that rally to introduce legislation to ban trans health care for minors. He also introduced legislation that criminalizes drag performances where children could be present. Both bills were signed into law and now face legal challenges. Also in 2022, the white nationalist group White Lives Matter protested Franklin’s Juneteenth Festival, an incident that highlights the tensions surrounding how Williamson County remembers and acknowledges its past. 

In April of this year, the Williamson County Republican Party saw its latest shakeup, with a clean-sweep vote leading to the removal of now-former party chair Cheryl Brown, the first Black woman to serve in the role, and the election of Tracy Miller. Miller has strong ties to the state GOP and a history of legal troubles that have caused tensions among some Republican voters in the county, along with allegations of fraud and corruption.

Miller called Williamson County “the swamp,” while Brown characterized the takeover as a hijacking of the party in coordination with Gary Humble, who lost his own state Senate primary race against Johnson in 2022. Humble runs Tennessee Stands, a Franklin-based group that protested many public health measures throughout the pandemic.

Humble previously told Scene sister publication The News that there is “deep divide in the Republican Party.”

Culture Wars Over Public Schools

It’s not just elected officials who are fighting right-wing culture wars in Williamson County, with activists and local celebrities taking up far-right causes, often focused on children and schools. From challenges to now-expired COVID-era policies to charter schools, debates over critical race theory (however misapplied that term often is) and ongoing efforts to challenge the presence of some books in school libraries, right-wing activists’ attention on schools has intensified.

In 2022, school board elections became officially partisan in Williamson County. In March of that year, Williamson Families — a Franklin-based right-wing political action committee formed in 2021 — endorsed its first round of school board and county commission candidates. As with the Tea Party movement more than a decade before it, the group (made up of registered Republicans and independents) champions familiar fiscal and social conservative values, along with the equally familiar pairing of God and country, freedom and Christ, and references to former President Ronald Reagan — all while taking aim at “woke ideology” framed as part of an ongoing “war” led by “Christian warriors.”

Williamson Families chair Robin Steenman also serves as the chapter chair of Moms for Liberty Williamson County, an organization whose stated mission is “fighting for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.” Though Steenmen has pushed back against the “extremist” label, Moms for Liberty’s influence and action in Williamson County has stretched beyond voicing concerns on social media and showing up for public meetings, as the group regularly hosts advocacy meetings and guest speakers, from local elected officials to right-wing media figures like the Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles. Williamson County students and youth groups have also expanded further into right-wing activism, beyond the traditional scope of young Republican groups and into high school and college chapters backed by the right-wing nonprofit Turning Point USA. In 2022, right-wing activist and political commentator Benny Johnson served as the guest speaker for an event hosted by the TPUSA Nolensville High School chapter, coaching students of all ages on how to fight the “culture war” with memes and ridicule.

A frequent target of Moms for Liberty and Williamson Families is Williamson County Schools board member Eric Welch, a Republican who has been labeled by the groups as “the left’s secret weapon.”  Welch has served on the school board for more than a decade and says that while he believes there is a growing “vocal minority” of “extremists” within Williamson County’s population, he characterizes the community as generally holding mainstream conservative views. Welch has also said Williamson County and much of Tennessee is subject to the reality of one-party rule, leading to a prominence of groups proclaiming ideologies in search of a problem.

“It’s not based on an educated point of view,” Welch says. “They haven’t taken the time to sort of ask questions and find out what’s going on. It’s, ‘This is what I think,’ and then what we look for is any rumor or indicator that supports that point of view without really questioning, ‘Am I getting this from a person or source that would be in the know?’”

In August 2021, public debate about face masks for elementary school students came to a head. Hundreds of people attended a Williamson County Schools board meeting, with a crowd of anti-mask protesters devolving into a mob that harassed several pro-mask community members, including parents and medical professionals. One WCS parent was chased to his car and surrounded by anti-mask protesters (some of whom were neither parents nor residents of Williamson County), with one man shouting, “We know who you are, and we will find you.” The incident was reported on by The News, formerly known as the Williamson Home Page, and drew widespread condemnation, including from President Joe Biden. Nearly a year later it became clear that no charges would be filed against any of the people threatening parents — in part because the man who was chased and harassed by protesters feared retaliation.

Welch says it’s important for everyone, especially parents, to get more involved and engaged in their communities and their elections.

“If they don’t get involved and make their voice heard, there’s going to be people who do it for them, and it’s not going to be the people that they want,” Welch says. “If they don’t speak up, you remain silent, all the decisions in this county are going to be made by people with agendas and points of view and belief systems that do not align in any way, shape or form with their own.”

Faith and the Church

Williamson County is defined in large part by the Christian faith of the majority of its residents. But a dissenting voice is Franklin Community Church pastor Kevin Riggs, a vocal critic of right-wing ideologies — specifically evangelical dominionism, noting that he sees Williamson County as “the capital of Christian nationalism.”

“What you have is people trying to build ‘the kingdom of Christ,’ but they’re doing it the same way you build the empire, and that’s anti-Christ,” Riggs says. “Yet it’s hard to convince people of that, because they’re hearing it from the pulpit, it’s what they’re reading in the Christian literature, and so they’re convinced that they’re following the mandate given them by God.”

Riggs specifically cites the recent divisive vote over the 2022 Franklin Pride Festival. Hundreds of people showed up to a meeting of the Franklin Board of Mayor and Aldermen in April to protest Pride, including many local faith leaders and dozens of community members who said they were “shocked” by last year’s drag performances.

Riggs says he doesn’t believe most Williamson County residents know about or specifically subscribe to the ideas of Christian nationalism. But, he says, many faithful Christians are swayed to not challenge the ideals that are preached in some churches — ideals that he says trickle into the arenas of business, education, politics and government. Riggs warns that the power of the pulpit is not only vital to the growth and success of extremist right-wing movements, but that politics can hold sway over the churches themselves.

“I don’t know anyone who’s had to step down from the church because they’re too far to the right,” Riggs says. “But I know lots of people who have had to step down because they were perceived to have gone too far to the left.”

Riggs fears that if Christian nationalism continues to take hold in Williamson County and Middle Tennessee, marginalized communities could increasingly become the targets of violence in the name of Jesus.

“All wars are bad,” he says. “Holy wars are evil. And so if I [can] convince myself that I’m killing you for a righteous cause, then that’s dangerous.”