The so-called Tennessee Three are little more than grandstanding anti-gunners who made an ass of themselves not in order to encourage people to support gun control but to raise their own political profile.
It seems their grandstanding is paying off just as they hoped as President Joe Biden has extended an invitation to the three to come and hang out with him at the White House.
President Joe Biden on Monday will host three Democratic state lawmakers from Tennessee who were at the center of a national political storm over their protest in the Republican-controlled chamber against lack of gun laws.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the three state representatives — Justin Jones, Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson — will visit “this coming Monday.”
She noted that Biden had previously spoken with them by phone and “thanked them for their leadership in seeking to ban assault weapons and standing up for the democratic values.”
Biden spotlighted the “undemocratic and unprecedented attacks on them in the Tennessee state house” and he “looks forward to continuing that discussion,” Jean-Pierre said.
In other words, if you make a big enough ass of yourself, Biden will give you exactly what you hope for.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I think these three really do want gun control. Maybe they had enough self-delusion to think their antics would make a difference. I really don’t know.
What I do know, however, is that they weren’t expelled from the Tennessee House because they pushed gun control, but because they were disruptive.
Unfortunately, that’s been lost. The media spun it as being about their gun control protest, making it like they were expelled for their position on the topic. The White House does much the same thing when claiming they were “standing up for the democratic values” when they were rather doing the opposite.
Of course, with this, Biden is giving them what they hoped for and positioning them to move up within the party, all because they couldn’t be bothered to respect the chamber they’d been elected to. Biden–or at least his people that know what day of the week it is–have to understand this and that they’re just encouraging this behavior.
“But Tom, why would they care?”
Because this will be used to justify someone on the right doing the exact same thing.
Imagine, for example, a California Republican leading a pro-gun protest onto the floor of the House there. Literally any reaction from the anti-gunners other than some form of acceptance will illustrate just how hypocritical they really are.
Not that they care.
Biden, however, won’t be inviting them to the White House and we all know it. Disruption in service to anti-gun ideology is a good and noble defense of democracy to him while principled stands for gun rights is…well, anything else.
I’m sorry, but lawmakers should show at least some respect for the chambers they’re elected to serve in, yet these three did no such thing. For Biden to basically reward them is a slap in the face of the voters of Tennessee.