Tennessee Republicans have swapped out the playing field – and they’re hoping you won’t notice

One consistent tactic of right wing leaders over the years is to change the field of play. This was a conversation about how wrong and unpopular Tennessee Republicans are on guns. Now it’s a conversation about how wrong they are for expelling two Black Democrats, and guns are no longer the headline in the story.

When right wingers facing a battle they know they can’t win (guns), they swap it out for a scandal that they think will get bigger headlines (expulsions) and that they hope will then go away on its own. Then they’ve made the guns thing go away with a different story that also went away, and the pressure is off them entirely.

That’s not to say this tactic always works. In fact can backfire spectacularly. You can end up trading in one scandal for a far uglier and longer lasting scandal that’ll hurt you even more in the next election, which is what Tennessee Republicans may have done here.

Republicans used to have better luck with this tactic. Now they mostly just go from being on the unpopular side of one lasting scandal, to being on the unpopular side of some other lasting scandal. Then again, these days Republicans are on the unpopular side of every issue to begin with. It’s not so easy to trade in your problematic car when every other car on the lot is also a clunker.

Racism isn’t as popular as it used to be. And wrongly targeted Black leaders now have more avenues for immediately getting their side of the story out there. Tennessee Republicans are trying to use a 1950s or 1980s tactic in 2023. Which in addition to being evil, is just lazy.

There is a very good chance that Tennessee Republicans have done more harm to themselves than if they had simply allowed this to continue being just about gun reform. This is more likely to cost them their supermajority than if it were still solely about guns.

But from Tennessee Republicans’ point of view, at least it’s not mainly about guns anymore. That’s an issue they were going to lose on for sure, and one that they couldn’t budge on because their donors won’t allow it. Now they’ve swapped out that losing issue for a different issue. It’s a risky swap, but they’ve still pulled off the swap.

But even as we rightly expand our focus to include expulsions and not just gun reform, let’s keep in mind that the Republicans wanted it this way. They wanted us to have to focus on two issues, not just one. Never lose sight of how your opponents are trying to shift the playing field.

When we’re done fighting and winning the battle over these explosions, and when we’re done electorally punishing Republicans for it, there will still be the urgent need for an overwhelming push on gun reform – something that Republicans are desperately hoping you’ll forget about. Don’t let that happen.