Soddy-Daisy speaker packs a lot into a party label

Refuge Assembly Church, in Soddy-Daisy, sits just a mile outside State House District 26, which stretches from North Chattanooga through Hixson, Soddy-Daisy, Lakesite, and Sale Creek to the Rhea County line. 

So it’s entirely possible that when I’m knocking doors in the north part of the district this election season, I’ll cross paths with someone who believes I’m a “vile, murderous, Marxist communist.”

The “vile” characterization came from a recent guest speaker at Refuge Assembly Church, as reported by the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Tennessee Neighbors for Liberty hosted the event, which featured a former FBI agent who’s been on a national media tour lambasting the bureau and warning that our country is in a “cold civil war” in which the enemy is Democrats. 

That’s bold considering that most Americans vote Democrat, based on the popular presidential vote, and that Democratic policies generally revolve around the basic aim of getting more people healthy, educated, and on course to join the middle class. Nothing radical about it. 

But that doesn’t matter if people believe Democrats are radical—which is how they’ve been painted in so much of the country, including East Tennessee. No need to import a guest speaker to Soddy-Daisy to ratchet up the hate and fear.

Here’s how that hate and fear manifests: A whole lot of my supporters won’t put my sign in their yard for fear of being harassed by their neighbors. While I don’t want anyone to do anything they’re not comfortable with, we shouldn’t let a few people scare us out of our First Amendment rights. Really, it is only a few. They’re just obstreperous.

If I put a sign in the yard of all the people who’ve told me they were scared to put a sign in their yard, none of them would be scared to put a sign in their yard.

Please join my campaign! Donate, volunteer—or get a yard sign!

Allison
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