Tennessee and South Carolina–The Crossroads of Southern Traditions, Racism, and “MAGA Reform:”
Part 2 of Exploring the MAGA 2025 Political Landscape.
2024 President-elect Donald Trump giving his inauguration speech in Washington, DC, on January 20th, 2025. The photo image is courtesy of ABC News.com.
NOTE: Nazia Saeed, a human resources professional living in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, contributed significant research and writing to this article.
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Just ponder for a moment the location of your birth.
Then, consider why God–or whatever creative force you deem responsible for your presence here on Earth–placed you in a particular area. Your ultimate fate might be a matter of geography. For Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), the American southeast influenced how his life flowed and ended.
Born in the segregationist Jim Crow era in Atlanta, Georgia–and assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, Reverend King dedicated his life to fighting for civil rights and economic equality for all Americans. The United States celebrated Dr. King’s birthday and life of public service yesterday.
Ironically, yesterday also featured the second presidential inauguration of Donald Trump–a man dedicated to tearing down and obliterating the civil rights legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. After Mr. Trump’s first presidential victory in 2016, former Ku Klux Klan (KKK) Grand Wizard David Duke and other southern White racists openly celebrated his win as a victory for their movement.
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American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968). The photo image is courtesy of Britannica.com
Yesterday, we provided our readers and subscribers with an overview of a select number of public health policy challenges facing states in the northeastern US during the upcoming first year of Donald Trump’s second term in office.
Our opinion article gave a snapshot of public health issues and the political dynamics impacting Youngstown, Ohio, and Camden, New Jersey. Today, we will focus on the unique public health concerns of the southeastern region of America by illuminating the pressing political issues of Nashville, Tennessee, and Columbia, South Carolina.
Until election day–November 5th, 2024, Mr. Trump’s political enemies consistently (and stupidly) underestimated his intellectual ability and political acumen.
Unlike Reverend King, Donald Trump is not a “Son of the South.” However, after his 2020 loss to former President Joe Biden and the failed violent insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021, Trump relocated from New York to Florida in 2021 to begin resurrecting his political career and fight his many legal battles.
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In stark contrast to the deluded corporatists who dominate the current Democratic Party, Donald Trump understands his White, working-class political base of supporters and is willing to embrace them.
President Trump realizes his most enthusiastic Make America Great Again (MAGA) supporters are descendants of the American southerners who celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1968 assassination on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Mr. Trump and his MAGA movement are now poised to reimpose Jim Crow in America via their antediluvian Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Project 2025 plans.
On November 13th, 2024, Public Health Policy Reviews featured the ghastly assault rifle attack on the Covenant School – a private Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee. Transgender activist Audrey Hale, aka Aiden Hale – murdered three children and three adults at the Covenant School on March 27th, 2023.
After the tragic shooting, gun violence emerged as a critical issue in Nashville. Three Tennessee legislative members and thousands of young students galvanized national public opinion for stricter gun control measures.
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Nashville, Tennessee: Guns, Growth, and Conservative Governance.
Nashville, Tennessee.
Despite the raucous calls for gun reform stirred by multiple mass shootings, Tennessee state leadership vehemently resisted progressive and liberal efforts to enact change.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, a Republican (GOP), leads a state with a GOP supermajority in the legislature. This political environment dominates the proposal and passage of policies that effectively address public safety, healthcare, and social welfare.
Additionally, healthcare access has long been a pressing public concern, particularly in Nashville’s poorest inner-city and rural suburban regions. Efforts to expand telemedicine and attract more healthcare providers are ongoing. Nonetheless, the GOP has effectively kept the expansion of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) off their executive and legislative agendas.
Like many other contemporary southeastern urban areas, it is perplexing that Nashville has developed a reputation as a thriving multicultural, educational, and economic hub of population growth and business activity. This dichotomy reveals the uniquely traditional cultural and religious conservative political forces preventing public health policy progress in Nashville and throughout Tennessee.
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Columbia, South Carolina: The Crossroads of Tradition and Reform.
Columbia, South Carolina.
As South Carolina’s capital, Columbia plays a central role in shaping state policies.
Like Nashville and Youngstown, Ohio, up north, Columbia’s public health landscape is marked by conservative political dominance. This dominance defines the many serious long-term healthcare issues and ongoing civil rights debates in South Carolina.
A recurring theme of GOP governors accompanying state legislatures firmly controlled by the same Christian and religious political alliances repeats in the form of Henry McMaster and the South Carolina Republican Party. Thus, failed efforts to expand Medicaid and improve healthcare access mirror the deep partisan divides roiling Tennessee and Ohio.
Additionally, recent restrictions on abortion laws have magnified the healthcare infrastructure gaps in South Carolina, making the state one of the many southern battleground regions for reproductive rights. The abortion debate has thrust Columbia and all of South Carolina into the center of protests and legal battles regarding reproductive healthcare.
Columbia, South Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee, exemplify the political tensions between maintaining restrictive cultural traditions and addressing modern public health challenges.
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Civil rights leader Andrew Young (far left, on the balcony) and others at the Lorraine Motel pointing in the direction of the assailant after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who is lying mortally wounded at their feet. The photo image is courtesy of Joseph Louw and The LIFE Images Collection.
This policy review Substack article is published one day after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and President Donald Trump’s historic second inauguration following an ignominious four-year absence from the Oval Office.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s violent death in Memphis, Tennessee, unofficially ended the political organizing cooperation between African Americans, American Jews, and White progressive activists during the US civil rights movement.
The concurrent historical rise of politically left-wing Black nationalism—and the violent, far-left “Black Power” movement in the late 1960s and 1970s—also signified the end of Black and Jewish international diplomatic collaboration.
These events set the stage for what one of our readers identifies as the root causes of current horrific events in Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. She wrote, “If you listen to Palestinians from different regions speak, you’ll realize that the issues facing people in the West Bank are different from those in the Gaza Strip—and different from those in other parts of the land.”
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Common Threads and Unique Challenges.
The graphic illustration is courtesy of CWAd1.org.
Identifying the historical political events and cultural idiosyncrasies of each region’s past in America will shape the imminent fight against MAGA, DOGE, and Project 2025.
Youngstown reflects the broad challenges of balancing economic recovery against an urgent opioid public health crisis in an increasingly politically conservative state.
Camden’s public health landscape reveals a city striving to overcome entrenched racial disparities for economic advancement and healthcare outcomes amid the Democratic Party’s rapidly declining influence in the state.
Nashville represents the problems inherent in balancing a robust pro-gun culture against the public health and safety needs of a multiculturally diverse state.
Columbia is grappling with a public health crisis made worse by regional traditional Christian beliefs that impose restrictions on racial and gender health and wealth.
President Trump, Elon Musk, the national GOP, and all their wealthy benefactors have no interest in solving the opioid crisis in Ohio, healthcare disparities in New Jersey, gun violence in Tennessee, or the abortion and reproductive health issues in South Carolina.
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This booking photo shows President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday, August 24th, 2023, after he surrendered and was booked at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta. The image is courtesy of the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office.
Instead, Mr. Trump has signaled his intention to exact revenge for his many political and legal humiliations since 2020.
The new president intends to do so by resuming his previous efforts from 2017 through 2021 to roll back the numerous public health, civil rights, and environmental protection gains ushered in during and after Reverend King’s historic political rise and influence on the United States of America.
Right-wing billionaire CEO Elon Musk, along with many other members of America’s wealthy ruling class and private corporations, will assist Trump’s reactionary efforts via DOGE and Project 2025. Yet, GOP governors and state legislatures have also provided unique political policy blueprints for “turning back the metaphorical clock” on public health, civil liberties, racial equality, women’s rights, and environmental safety.
Only political and systemic challenges bolstered by grassroots activism and state-level reforms can defeat MAGA and solve all these serious public health problems.