Despite his claims to be a different kind of Democrat who will work with President Donald Trump when it helps Tennessee and oppose the partisanship that divides Washington DC along political lines, Phil Bredesen continues to align himself with the most partisan and extremist elements of the Democratic Party. Bredesen has accepted donations from Tom Steyer, a California billionaire who is spending $100 million in an effort to impeach President Trump. And he has made over $460,000 in contributions himself to liberal Democratic candidates across the country, including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and the Presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.
Yet, his campaign continues to promote him as an example of bi-partisanship and working across the political divide.
Monday evening Bredesen is holding a fundraiser featuring singer-songwriters Jason Isbell and Ben Folds at the Marathon Music Works in Nashville in what is billed as outreach to Tennesseans of “all political stripes.” Neither of the headliners for the event have any history of political activism that is not limited to liberal and progressive causes.
Folds endorsed Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. Clinton trounced Sanders in the Tennessee presidential primary contest; she was then soundly defeated by Trump by a margin of over 652,000 votes (61-35%).
Isbell has attacked Trump’s faith, and denounced Christians, specifically those who live in rural communities like those in Tennessee, who support the President.
Jason Isbell:
The Trump presidency has convinced me that we are living in a post-Christian America. I could see how a lot of conservative right-wing Christian Americans would vote for someone like Mitt Romney, who seems like a stand-up guy. But Trump is obviously not a good Christian person. I think the fact that so many people voted for him means that there aren’t that many good Christian people left in rural America. God is gone from those people.
After Trump’s election Isbell also noted that he had lost faith in the South.
Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill noted that the pairing for the Bredesen fundraiser is 180 degrees from the claim that the event is intended to appeal to Tennesseans of “all political stripes.”
“Two self-proclaimed liberals who despise Trump voters being trotted out to perform at a ‘nonpartisan’ event in a state Trump carried by 26 points shows that either Bredesen doesn’t ‘get’ Tennessee or that he hopes Tennesseans don’t ‘get’ the joke,” Gill said; adding, “Bredesen will try to hide his true colors with slick ads and down-home images of houses that APPEAR to be in Tennessee, but the truth is pretty clear to anybody willing to look past his commercials.”
