A friend called me last week in the wake of the announcement that In-N-Out is coming to Franklin, and they joked that we should now call Williamson County e.cali. Like e.coli, but ... OK, you know what? Typing it out, I have to admit that it is the dad-est dad joke, but when I heard it I laughed.
And the fruit is so, so very low-hanging on this story. As reported by The Tennessean, we find Gov. Bill Lee saying:
"In-N-Out Burger is a great family business that has been operating for decades in this country, with a value system and a way of serving their customers that lines up just right here in Tennessee," Lee said in a tweet. "It means a lot of opportunity, and a lot of jobs for a lot of Tennesseans."
It would be so easy to spend this column telling you all about the lived values of the Snyder family and asking which of those Lee thinks lines up with Tennessee, but I spent a few hours reading up on Lynsi Snyder-Ellingson, the president of In-N-Out, and you know what? She seems pretty open about her shortcomings and the restaurant seems to pay pretty well, so, eh? No hate here from me. She’s not any more immoral than other rich people, and she seems better than most. She’s no Elon Musk anyway.
The Tennessean reports that Snyder-Ellingson made the decision to expand into the state based on a visit she and her husband made here: "We came here years ago, actually east of the Smokies, but came back out to Pigeon Forge and Nashville and fell in love. There was one other state definitely interested and wanting us there, but we chose Nashville."
This is my favorite part. Again, no knock on Snyder-Ellingson. Welcome to Tennessee. Here are some basic facts someone on the governor’s team maybe should have prepped you with: The Smokies are our eastern border, so you can’t get east of them and still be in Tennessee. You did not choose Nashville. You chose Franklin, which is an entirely different city. But please keep referring to Franklin as Nashville, because it cracks me up that all the snobs who’ve spent the past 60 years making sure we all know they’re from Franklin, not Nashville, have to hear all these newcomers enthusiastically lumping Franklin in as a neighborhood in Nashville.
I am delighted by all of the conservative Californians coming here. Baffled, but delighted. They’re always claiming that their need to leave California proves what a shitty place it is, but then they get here and it’s all, “Of course I’ll pay $500,000 for a house that 10 years ago cost $150,000,” and, “You know what we need? All the restaurants I liked in California.” Y’all, we have burger joints here already. If you disliked California enough to leave it, maybe don’t turn around and remake your new home in its image.
But also, why do they come to Nashville? (Or Franklin, but say it’s Nashville?) If you left California because you don’t like all the lefty policies and the “degenerate” social life, why are you claiming a city with a long history of drag shows and strip clubs and something of a tolerance for “alternative” lifestyles? Also, about once per generation we try to have a political sex scandal so bananas that we all get to laugh about it for a decade.
Why don’t they just move to Franklin and say they’re from Franklin? What’s wrong with Franklin that it’s good enough to move to, but not good enough to claim?
Here’s my theory: As scary/annoying/infuriating as conservatives find liberal places, conservatives (the ones who are not overtly white nationalist) have yet to come up with a conservative culture they actually like and want to fully immerse themselves in, and there are few large cities — if any — where conservative policies have been implemented and resulted in a place where conservatives want to live.
So, if conservatives with money want to live some place they enjoy living, they need to be some place where they can leech off more progressive cultures, but still feel safe from them. Et voila! You move to Williamson County and say you live in Nashville.
It’s fine. We all know how this goes, since it’s been going this way forever. Folks come here, expect to rule the roost, and they’re met with the recalcitrance and apathy to “important” people that makes up the fundamental nature of a Tennessean. Then they storm off, usually to Texas. (See Davy Crockett fuming, “You all may go to hell, and I will go to Texas.”)
Oh my God. I was just about to make a joke about how some people who come to Tennessee and end up having to flee to Texas do so dressed as women — like how Sam Houston had to disguise himself in women’s clothing in order to get out of the state before the city of Gallatin lynched him for dishonoring his child bride, Gallatinian Eliza Allen. But then I just realized our bozo state legislature is going to try to outlaw one of Sam Houston’s most infamous acts. (No, not marrying a child. They’re cool with that.) They’re trying to extinguish a form of political expression so fundamental to our identity as a state that one of our most famous governors did it: men dressing up in women’s clothes.
One of our earliest political scandals resolved with a drag performance.
Haha! I bet we’re not putting that fact in the "Welcome" packets for all these coastal conservative elites.
