Speaker Cameron Sexton, April 2025
Tennessee Republicans. These babies.
Did you read Hamilton Matthew Masters' Scene story last week? All about how the bunch of cowards we have running this state have sponsored a bill to “criminalize ‘doxxing’ of federal agents and allow for the removal of elected officials in the latest escalation against Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell.” This comes after Metro published (and later unpublished) a spreadsheet on its website listing limited communication between the MNPD and ICE.
First, we don’t have secret police. Posting the name of a law enforcement agent isn’t doxxing. It’s just stating a fact that is and should be available to the people who pay their salaries — namely, us.
Second, ask some women who’ve been on the internet for longer than 60 seconds what doxxing is. Doxxing is when someone sends you a picture of your house and suggests you stop writing for the Scene or they will post that picture in forums full of people who hate you. Doxxing is when someone sends you an email that contains information on your mom’s work schedule and tells you what a tragedy it would be if that information got out online and someone were to meet up with your mom when she was walking from the school to her car and were to demonstrate to her just how upset your writing made them. Doxxing carries with it an implicit but clearly intended threat to the target or the target’s loved ones.
State and federal lawmakers file bills that would penalize elected officials for 'doxxing' federal agents
What is the implicit but clear threat intended here? Obviously, there is none.
What there is instead is the Tennessee GOP telling on itself. Republicans: You’re afraid someone might start treating ICE agents the way they treat everyone else. If it’s terrifying to have someone know who you are and where you work, if you’re afraid they might mask up and jump out of unmarked vehicles and you might never see your grandkids again, if you’re worried they might grab your kids from their school in order to lure you into a trap, then stop doing it to other people.
You don’t need legislation to stop other people from doing to you what you’re doing to them, if what you’re doing isn’t evil.
Third, if you don’t like the way Nashville runs, stop living here. None of us are going over to Cookeville, or Crossville, or Centerville, or wherever, and telling those mayors we’re going to find ways to throw them in jail for having different priorities than us. The interstates are wide open. Pack up your wives and kids and go home. You can still come visit from time to time. Our Civil War-era fortifications are yours to hide in. But being pissed because our mayor’s administration did what a phone book does? Are y’all going to pass legislation to keep AT&T from doxxing people too? Are O’Connell and the Batman Building gonna be cellmates? (We may need a bigger jail, if that’s the plan.)
Nashville mayor is ‘not particularly concerned’ about immigration-related investigation
Fourth, we need law enforcement to be easily and plainly identifiable. If ICE is going to come to your workplace and take you into custody, it should be damn clear to everyone that this is ICE. Right now, people are just running around pretending to be law enforcement, terrorizing people and assassinating state politicians, because someone claiming to be law enforcement acting like a goddamn lunatic is now par for the course. We can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys. We don’t need legislation to make it harder to figure out who is legitimate law enforcement and who isn’t. And I’m not saying that as some hippie liberal commie. (Or not just because of that, anyway.) I’m saying that because a person pretending to be law enforcement just assassinated a state legislator and I don’t want that to happen to you.
Fifth, when you have a stated enemy, you’ve now given people a lot of information about how you see yourself. Like, if I say that my nemesis is John Meacham, I’m putting myself on par with a respected historian and raconteur. I might be misguided in my belief that we are or should be on the same footing, but now you have that bit of insight into me. Same if I tell you that my nemesis is the Scene’s college intern. Now you might suspect that I have issues with aging, that I’m insecure in my place. Or you might want to lay eyes on the intern to see if it's some 6-foot-5 martial arts expert.
Y’all are now a full clown car of anger at Freddie O’Connell — a man, prior to his becoming mayor, who was most famous for not owning a car so he could save up to buy a house. A man who sits on his porch and waves at his neighbors.
Prior to this, if I were to think about who would win in a fight — state House Speaker Cameron Sexton or Mayor Freddie O’Connell — I wouldn’t have known who to pick. But now that I know that Sexton needs the state leadership to back him up, what I now know is that Sexton, at least, thinks he’s weaker than O’Connell.
Who would willingly divulge that information?
I guess this is supposed to be some big show of unity? That state-level Republicans will fall in line and support known liar U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles and U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who is in the process of getting Sarah Huckabee Sandersed out of Washington? But, like, history suggests that getting involved with Ogles only hurts you, and that Blackburn has, as the kids say, no rizz. So state Republicans are giving legitimacy to two fools who don’t deserve it and are giving O’Connell the best PR he could hope for with the left side of his base, and in exchange for what?
Looking dumb and weak? How is this a good deal for them?
Good Lord. The country is in shambles. The world is falling apart, but at least Tennessee Republicans give me something to wonder about and laugh about at least once a week.
