(RNS) — Williamson County is Tennessee’s wealthiest community and has the best schools in the state, some of the biggest churches, a host of Christian nonprofits and a whole bunch of country music stars who call it home.
It’s not the place you expect to find neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
Yet there they were last month, showing up at a forum to back then-mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson, a local Realtor and alderman in Franklin, Tennessee, a bucolic suburb 20 miles south of Nashville best known for its Civil War-era mansions, historical downtown and annual Pumpkinfest and “Dickens of a Christmas” festivals.
While Hanson — whom some supporters, including a self-described prophet, described as God’s anointed candidate — denied supporting racism of any kind, she also refused to denounce the white supremacists who showed up to back her.
Hanson, who opposed the city’s Pride Fest and has warned that Franklin has become “woke,” told critics that any division due to her campaign was the fault of city leaders.
“This is the old adage of you reap what you sow,” she said.
Hanson lost her mayoral election to incumbent Ken Moore by a margin of 12,822 to 3,322, according to The Tennessean newspaper, due in large part to a huge jump in voter turnout.
Despite her loss, the presence of white supremacists in Franklin has shaken longtime residents like writer Holly McCall, editor-in-chief of the Tennessee Lookout and a former chair of the Williamson County Democratic Party.
“I feel like I need to put a tinfoil hat on because when I start talking to people who aren’t from here,” said McCall, “it sounds absolutely crazy.”
McCall is concerned about the rise of Christian nationalism in Williamson County and worries that Hanson’s run for mayor, even though it failed, will provide a road map for Christian nationalist candidates — especially in well-off communities like Franklin.
“We are the tip of the spear because we look like Pleasantville,” she said.
The kind of Christian nationalism found in these affluent Nashville suburbs is driven not by the so-called deplorables — white, disenfranchised, working-class Americans who are often seen as the core of the “Make America Great Again,” or MAGA, base but by the kind of well-to-do suburban Christians found in Williamson County who have money and influence and something to lose in a changing America.
“This is not the downtrodden,” said author and attorney David French, who lives in Franklin. “This is not like the voice of the forgotten coal miner in West Virginia. This is some of the most privileged people in the whole United States of America, acting like they’re on the brink of unimaginable persecution.”
Hanson — whose campaign website describes her as an American, a patriot, a follower of Christ and a mom — is the latest of a series of Christian leaders warning that Williamson County’s way of life is under threat.
The suburban Nashville county was a hotbed of the Tea Party movement, which was followed by the anti-Shariah movement, support for Donald Trump’s MAGA campaign, and fights over Common Core and critical race theory in local schools. During the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-vaccine and anti-shutdown protesters threatened doctors and other health professionals during a school board meeting, with some shouting, “We know where you live.”
Leaders of those movements were once seen as fringe, said French, who described the old guard as more of the Chamber of Commerce variety of Republicans.
French, a former lawyer with the American Center for Law and Justice and Alliance Defending Freedom, a pair of Christian legal powerhouses, said now those once at the edge of the room are running the place.
French has a hard time understanding the fear that drives people to feel their way of life in Williamson County is in danger. The county — and the broader Nashville region — is filled with what he called “prosperous, professional Christians” who work with publishing houses, Christian music labels and a host of ministries.
