There’s nothing like being told to shut up to ignite some political fire in the belly.
Republicans tried to silence @VoteGloriaJ on guns.
But calls for gun reforms will dominate a truly massive nationaal audience tonight at #DNCConvention2024.@garrison_hayes sat down for this exclusive chat with one member of the famous #TennesseeThree.
In April 2023, three opposition lawmakers were thrust into the national spotlight after the Republican-led Tennessee House of Representatives moved to strip them of office for staging gun reform protests. State Rep. Gloria Johnson was one of them, and along with State Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, she joined students and families in the aftermath of Nashville’s Covenant School shooting to call for change, loudly and defiantly, in the state capitol. “Eighty percent of Tennesseans want something done about guns,” Johnson told me. “They want some gun-sense legislation.”
“No other country lives like this.”
The first time I met Johnson was on the eve of that unprecedented vote. She remained in office; the other two did not, but they were swiftly reappointed to their seats until a special election, at which they were reelected. Their trailblazing stand left them with a large following and a media-friendly nickname: The Tennessee Three.
Since then, Johnson has launched a campaign for the US Senate to unseat Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a close ally of Donald Trump, in November. “Tennessee deserves someone working for them,” she said. “Somebody who cares about everybody having access to affordable healthcare.”
The profile the three gained last year has given them the opportunity to bring their message to perhaps the biggest stage of their political careers so far: The Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Georgia Rep. Lucy McBath will join several other members of Congress and former Arizona Rep. and activist Gabrielle Giffords for a conversation centered on the devastating impacts of gun violence. “We don’t have to live like this,” Johnson told me. “No other country lives like this.”
Rep. Maxwell Frost is the youngest US congressman—and every headline and article about him (including ours!) never fails to mention it. Hailed as the first and only (for now) Gen Z Representative, Frost rose from the ranks of activism as the national organizing director for March for Our Lives to Congress, when he was elected to represent central Florida nearly two years ago. He instantly aligned with several big progressive causes, especially ending gun violence, and joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He also became an outspoken defender of and campaigner for President Joe Biden. That’s come at a cost. More recently, critics singled him out for having betrayed his activist roots, accusing him of not being outspoken enough about the war in Gaza.
Having just won his primary this week, Frost is facing reelection in November and I had the chance to catch up with him in one of the DNC’s fancy “creator” spaces on the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. During our sit-down interview, we talked about what he’s learned in his short time in Congress (it’s dysfunctional!), how to navigate big, contentious issues (it’s hard!), and what he wants to see from the Harris campaign in terms of policy (he’s very excited about housing! Not surprising when you recall his apartment-hunting headaches when he arrived in DC.)
Watch the video, and below there’sa lightly edited transcript of the conversation.
Okay, so what have you learned? What has been most surprising for you as a Congressman? And, I wanna know how you’ve changed.
Honestly, what’s been really surprising for me, is we know there’s so much dysfunction in Congress. And oftentimes, we just blame the people there for that dysfunction, so I’m gonna give them 60 percent of the blame. Forty percent, or a good chunk, actually has to do with the institution itself. I’ll give you a very small example. Orientation, when the new members first get to know each other, before we start arguing, we’re just all humans, new people to Congress. You don’t really get a lot of time to spend time with the other side of the aisle. The only time I’m with the Republicans is during the classes, and what are you supposed to do in class? Listen. The last half of the day, the social aspect, is all separated by party. So it makes sense why there’s so much dysfunction here.
Here at the DNC, we are looking forward. We have about 75, or so, days until the election. What is it that you wanna see? What kind of policies? What do you want the Harris campaign to bring forward?
“I’m really excited about the housing platform that Vice President Harris has put forth.”
I’m really excited about the housing platform that Vice President Harris has put forth. Honestly, it’s one of the first times, I think, the Democratic party has put together a housing platform that’s really exciting. What else? I’m excited to see the Vice President continue to talk about her plans around preventing the climate crisis. Obviously, the Biden-Harris administration made history and dedicated the most resources and money towards defeating the climate crisis. Not in the history of our country, but the history of the world.
The Vice President has been very vocal on gun control—an issue that’s very near and dear to you and your work. What are you hoping to see around that? And what role would you play?
I’m proud that the first bill I introduced in Congress was to create a federal office of gun violence prevention. The President took that legislation with Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and used it as the foundation for an executive order. And he created the White House Office of Violence Prevention. Who’s its leader? Vice President Kamala Harris. So, I’m excited to see her expand that office, and what I wanna see is for us to put more money toward CVI, Community Violence Intervention. These are programs, community-based, that work at identifying people most likely to be shot, and the people most likely to shoot someone. And then, they intervene at the community level. We had this program in Orlando, and gun violence has gone down in the blocks it’s operating in. And how did we get the program started? Federal money. First from the American Rescue Plan, and then from the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
So, let’s get a personal question in here. How do you grow as a politician and a leader with all of the complex issues here that we face in this country.
“There’s so much to learn.”
Yeah, there’s so much to learn. I have 10 meetings in a day about completely different subjects. I’m gonna be honest, number one, it’s a team effort. I have a great staff that really helps educate me. There’s a lot of resources that are available to us. There’s actually something called the Congressional Research Service. I can go to my staff and say, “I want an in-depth briefing on the situation in the Congo.” And they will get our government experts to come in and give me an in-depth briefing. That information, is always the basis for me to do more research, and speak to other outside groups, as well. So we have a lot of resources we can take advantage of to educate ourselves. We’re not gonna be experts on every issue. But we should definitely try our best to educate ourselves on every issue. That way we can legislate in a better way.
We have so many issues like, why is this important? What makes it more important than something else? And it all leads us to, why is this election important?
“There are communities that won’t survive.”
This election is important because if we elect Donald Trump again, it’s not a pause in progress, it’s a rollback. And there are communities that won’t survive. That word “survival” means something different for everyone. More people will die of gun violence. He wants mass deportations of certain communities. Nothing will be done about the climate crisis. People will literally die. We’re experiencing extreme heat right now that’s killing more people than ever before. So, lives are at stake. And from the gun violence movement, my work, and my organizing has always been about saving lives. So, we gotta make sure we don’t let that guy anywhere near the White House. Kamala Harris is gonna save lives.
Congressman Frost, thank you so much for your time.
Just a few (long) weeks ago, President Joe Biden was still running for reelection, grappling with persistently negative polling. One major concern for Democrats—and a source of surprise and delight for Republicans—was the apparent shift of young Black male voters towards former President Donald Trump. This will-they-won’t-they question dominated the summer, culminating at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in mid-July: Could Trump make significant inroads into a voting bloc that traditionally supported Democrats?
That narrative shifted dramatically with the entry of Vice President Kamala Harris into the race. Suddenly, a much higher percentage of Black voters told pollsters of their intent to vote, a big increase from July when Biden was still on the ticket. “I seem to be doing very well with Black males,” Trump mused during a televised press conference at Mar-a-Lago last week, without citing evidence. “And I still am.” But he also seemed spooked: “It could be that I’ll be affected somewhat with Black females.”
When the Mother Jones team reported from the RNC last month, I went on a mission to unravel these complex cross-currents of identity, policy, and political strategy. “I learned a lot about Black Republicans during these conversations—their motivations, their stories, their goals,” I recall, in a new, in-depth video showcasing several substantive interviews with Black convention attendees. “I wanted to know what draws a Black person to identify with this Republican Party.”
I uncovered old-school appeals to rugged individualism (with elements of historical revisionism), traditional anti-abortion viewpoints, and a rejection of government interventions. Ultimately, I discovered that—for a party that so openly courts racists and racism enablers—having more Black people in the ranks could be, surprisingly, beneficial: “The only way the Republican Party becomes this ideologically conservative but racially inclusive big tent party,” I conclude, “is if there is a fundamental rejection of the people, policies, and practices they currently hold as sacred in their political vision.”
They say history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes—and 2024 is, no matter how inconvenient for an embattled Joe Biden, resonating deeply with 1968. From anti-war protests on campuses to the Democratic National Convention being hosted in Chicago, these two distinct years, though decades apart, are drawing eerie comparisons, as I explain in my new video:
Biden’s disastrous debate performance last Thursday sparked calls for him to drop his reelection bid. While it’s uncertain if Biden will follow Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1968 footsteps and step aside, the fallout has added another dimension to the historical parallels. Team Biden insists the 81-year-old is in it until November. But on Tuesday, Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first elected Democrat to call for Biden to reconsider, doing so from “the heart of a district once represented by Lyndon Johnson.” Others Democrats have since joined him.
On paper, Johnson and Biden share few similarities. Biden sailed through a relatively uncontested primary, while Johnson faced significant challenges from Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy. Biden, like Johnson, indeed faces a persistent anti-war movement. But 1968 campus protest organizer Juan Gonzalez assured me recently that the two eras, in this regard, are not the same: “I think people need to understand that there were significant differences,” he said. While the US is funding and supporting Israel’s war on Gaza, “back in 1968, the US was directly participating in the Vietnam War, leading to the deaths of over two million Vietnamese.”
President Lyndon B. Johnson works on a speech in the White House Cabinet Room March 30, 1968. The following day, the president announced to the nation that in order to devote himself to his duties, he would not seek or accept the nomination for re-election.Bob Daughery/AP
Differences aside, as the 2024 Democratic National Convention approaches, comparisons with the chaotic 1968 event in Chicago are inevitable. The 1968 convention was marred by violent clashes and factionalism. Republican Richard Nixon capitalized on the chaos, campaigning on law and order. He won and ultimately ushered in an era of conservatism that stifled the Civil Rights Movement.
Despite Biden’s poor debate performance, if history is any indication—a big if—a brokered convention may prove more costly than the Democratic Party expects. As Biden faces growing pressure, the ghosts of 1968 are making themselves known.
They say history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes—and 2024 is, no matter how inconvenient for an embattled Joe Biden, resonating deeply with 1968. From anti-war protests on campuses to the Democratic National Convention being hosted in Chicago, these two distinct years, though decades apart, are drawing eerie comparisons, as I explain in my new video:
Biden’s disastrous debate performance last Thursday sparked calls for him to drop his reelection bid. While it’s uncertain if Biden will follow Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1968 footsteps and step aside, the fallout has added another dimension to the historical parallels. Team Biden insists the 81-year-old is in it until November. But on Tuesday, Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first elected Democrat to call for Biden to reconsider, doing so from “the heart of a district once represented by Lyndon Johnson.” Others Democrats have since joined him.
On paper, Johnson and Biden share few similarities. Biden sailed through a relatively uncontested primary, while Johnson faced significant challenges from Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy. Biden, like Johnson, indeed faces a persistent anti-war movement. But 1968 campus protest organizer Juan Gonzalez assured me recently that the two eras, in this regard, are not the same: “I think people need to understand that there were significant differences,” he said. While the US is funding and supporting Israel’s war on Gaza, “back in 1968, the US was directly participating in the Vietnam War, leading to the deaths of over two million Vietnamese.”
President Lyndon B. Johnson works on a speech in the White House Cabinet Room March 30, 1968. The following day, the president announced to the nation that in order to devote himself to his duties, he would not seek or accept the nomination for re-election.Bob Daughery/AP
Differences aside, as the 2024 Democratic National Convention approaches, comparisons with the chaotic 1968 event in Chicago are inevitable. The 1968 convention was marred by violent clashes and factionalism. Republican Richard Nixon capitalized on the chaos, campaigning on law and order. He won and ultimately ushered in an era of conservatism that stifled the Civil Rights Movement.
Despite Biden’s poor debate performance, if history is any indication—a big if—a brokered convention may prove more costly than the Democratic Party expects. As Biden faces growing pressure, the ghosts of 1968 are making themselves known.
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