Part two: A darker shade of red

God and country’ people believe that America was founded as a Christian nation and that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are directly or indirectly inspired by the Christian Bible. They believe that America is especially blessed by God, it’s been given a special mission in history. And they worry that all these blessings and all that power will be taken away if it doesn’t remain a Christian nation. And, for most of these people, the term ‘Christian’ kind of implies ‘white.

– Philip Gorski, Yale University

Why has the Christian far right grown in the country? Gorski credits social media for being, probably, the biggest reason: social media has let once-small fringe groups interact with each other as well as work on influencing mainstream opinion.

Growth is one thing. Evolution is another. The latter has happened, too, Gorski posits. There’s a new development that Gorski mentions: The U.S. Christian far right is becoming authoritarian. He says it wasn’t like that 10 or 20 years ago.

Based on the current trends when Gorski was interviewed in 2022 for this story, Gorski thought that the Christian far right would get even more powerful in the Republican party over the next two to four years — so 2024 to 2026. Beyond that window, he said it was harder to predict what will happen. That’s because people are variable; what they do will impact what happens.

When it comes to Middle Tennessee, Rev. Kevin Riggs runs down a list of examples showing the region’s power in Christianity. It’s home to several denominational headquarters. Williamson County houses the majority of the Christian music industry. There are a number of Christian publishing houses in the Middle Tennessee area. And a lot of the executives who work in Christian publishing live in Williamson County.

“Almost anything that gets put out in the quote ‘Christian world’ and ‘Christian culture’ is going to come through Middle Tennessee before it goes out to the world, and a lot of that is going to come through Williamson County,” Riggs says.

Riggs is 57 years old. For the past 33, he has been a pastor at Franklin Community Church. He’s currently a senior pastor there. When RIggs talks, you hear a Southern drawl. Originally from Nashville, the fourth-generation ordained minister has lived in Franklin for more than three decades.

There’s more on his list. Middle Tennessee has so-called Christian celebrities. And it has organizations that have large preaching circuits. Plus, it has Christian institutions of higher education.

Middle Tennessee’s power, still, doesn’t end there. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research tracks the number of megachurches in the U.S. The institute classifies a church as a megachurch if it has an average weekly attendance of at least 2,000 people.  A February 2022 analysis by the Lookout for this story of the institute’s data showed Tennessee had 67 megachurches, placing the state fifth in the U.S. But on a per-capita basis, using data from both the institute and the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census population data, Tennessee had the most.

Christianity and politics are big in Williamson County. Riggs says even if you want to be elected for the lowly — and, in Williamson County, make-believe — office of dogcatcher, you need to go church, even if it’s just every so often.  And, you need to make sure people know that you go.

One thing Riggs wants to make clear: Not every Christian is far-right. But, he contends, the Christian far right is definitely present.

“You hear the South oftentimes referred to as the ‘buckle of the Bible Belt’ — sometimes that’s Tennessee, sometimes that’s Arkansas — but I’m convinced that Middle Tennessee, and Williamson County, in particular, is the buckle of Christian nationalism,” Riggs says, referring to Christian far-right extremism.

Riggs doesn’t know if the non-violent end of the far-right spectrum makes up the majority or the minority in Williamson County’s Christian community. It’s too close to tell.

In terms of power in Williamson County, Riggs says calling the Christian far right a “vocal minority” doesn’t truly represent how much muscle it actually has. Also, it’s become more vocal in recent years.

Extremism hits close to home for Riggs. He used to have Christian far-right views.

“I know what I’m talking about. I know how Evangelicals think. I know how that far right thinks,” Riggs says. He lets out a chuckle. “You know, I don’t need to read it in a survey. I mean, I know.”

If Trump wins the presidency in 2024, Riggs thinks the situation in Williamson County will get worse. There will be more divisiveness. The Christian far right will be even bolder.

U.S. Capitol riot emboldens far-right

Elizabeth Madeira decided to run for local office in the 2020 election cycle. Before eventually losing her bid for the Tennessee House of Representatives’ 63rd district — a seat held at the time by now-indicted former state House Speaker Glen Casada — Madeira encountered the far right numerous times. The most memorable experience came about six to eight weeks prior to election day. That’s when she got a phone call. The caller had a question: Was Madeira running as a Democrat? Yes, she answered.

“I did not get another word in edgewise because she went on a long ramble about how Democrats support killing babies, pedophilia, support killing police officers — it was a long, very angry tirade, in which she disparaged the college that I attended,” Madeira remembers, before pointing out that her alma mater is a Christian college. “And then she said that her daughter attends that college, and, now, she thinks she might have to take that daughter out of college because she was gonna turn into a Democrat like me.”

A little later in the conversation about that phone call, Madeira adds: “It was basically a litany of QAnon conspiracy theories for at least five minutes, and then she hung up on me.”

On Jan. 6, 2021 — nearly two months after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election — an event called the Save America March was scheduled. Trump, just 14 days away from the end of his presidential term, was the headliner.

The day was overcast. Cold, too. People were bundled up; some had draped Trump-themed flags over themselves. Red “Make America Great Again” hats were seen here and there. Same with signs. “SAVE AMERICA” read some. Another: “STAND WITH TRUMP.” One woman held a yellow, handmade sign that read “TRUMP WON” in all-capital letters.

Standing at the lectern, with American flags and the White House behind him, Trump falsely told the crowd the election was being stolen from him. Moments later, he added he would never concede and that “we will stop the steal.”

“Let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,” he instructed later in his speech.

He never went.

A torrent of pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the Capitol that day. A melee ensued. It lasted for hours. There were countless physical and psychological injuries. People died that day; afterward, too.

More than 725 people had been arrested and charged in connection to the insurrection, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a day before the insurrection’s one-year anniversary. Ronald Colton McAbee was one of them. McAbee was a Williamson County Sheriff’s Office employee on the day of the insurrection, according to a legal filing obtained by the Lookout. McAbee was charged with one count of “Inflicting Bodily Injury on Certain Officers or Employees and Aiding and Abetting”; one count of “Assaulting, Resisting, or Impeding Certain Officers or Employees”; two counts of “Obstruction of Law Enforcement During Civil Disorder”; one count of “Knowingly Entering or Remaining in any Restricted Building or Grounds with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon”; one count of “Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in any Restricted Building or Grounds with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon”; one count of “Engaging in Physical Violence any Restricted Building or Grounds with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon” and one count of “Violent Entry and Disorderly Conduct on Capitol Grounds,” as laid out in the legal filing.

Also in the legal filing is visual evidence of McAbee wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat and a black tactical vest during the insurrection. On his tactical vest there was a patch on the left breast that read “SHERIFF” in all-capital letters and a patch with the logo of the far-right militia group the Three Percenters on the right breast.

There were 733 far-right hate groups in the U.S. in 2021, according to the human-rights non-profit organization the Southern Poverty Law Center. That was the smallest annual number of U.S. hate groups that the SPLC tracked since it recorded 705 in 2002.

In Tennessee, the SPLC tracked 28 hate groups in 2021. These consisted of two anti-LGBTQ groups, three white-nationalist, four neo-Nazi, nine general hate, one antisemitic, four Ku Klux Klan, two anti-Muslim, one Christian identity, one neo-Confederate and one racist skinhead. Eleven of Tennessee’s 28 far-right hate groups in 2021 were statewide organizations. Of the remaining 17, six were in Middle Tennessee; none were in Williamson County.

When it comes to individual incidents of extremism or antisemitism, the anti-hate non-governmental and non-profit organization the Anti-Defamation League has data going back to 2002. In 2021, there were 5,373 incidents in the U.S. recorded by the ADL. That came on the heels of 6,978 in 2020 and 4,732 in 2019.

Tennessee had 38 incidents in 2021, per the ADL. Of the 38, one was a terrorist plot and attack, five were white-supremacist events, 30 were white-supremacist propaganda and eight were antisemitic incidents. Nine of the 38 happened in Middle Tennessee. Two were in Williamson County — both in Franklin: one white-supremacist propaganda, one antisemitic.

Jared Holt of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, thinks the U.S. far right became emboldened in 2021 following the Capitol insurrection. A motivating factor, in Holt’s eyes, for the far right is the belief that institutions failed Trump. And helping fuel extremist growth, Holt contends, is right-wing media in the U.S., which has succumbed to conspiratorialism.

To an extent, in Holt’s opinion, people with far-right views in the U.S. have always been involved in local politics. One part of the country’s far right that comes to his mind is militias: They’ve tried to get people on city councils or curry favor from local sheriffs.

Now, though, Holt notes, there are people with far-right ideologies that have bought into the conspiracy theory that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and that, on the national level, Republicans aren’t fighting hard enough for Trump. These people are trying to step up locally and fill the void that they feel exists.

Madeira says 2021 was crazy in Williamson County. It was divisive. Tense.

That’s when she started hearing the term “political refugee” in her community. People who had moved away from more-Democratic states and had come to the more-Republican Tennessee were using it.

Life in Williamson County is a paradox, Madeira says. On one hand, based on her involvement in the community, Madeira thinks that people with far-right ideology are the minority. However, she contends, they’re making the most noise and have become a collective, creating controversy and division. On the other hand, Williamson County has been one of the most-vaccinated counties in Tennessee against COVID-19.

At the state level in Tennessee, Madeira feels the far-right has taken over the Republican party, that extremist ideology has become mainstream.

Says Madeira: “I feel like what is happening in Tennessee is dangerous to Tennessee.”

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.