This is how you do it.
Two thousand miles away, a role model for us all.
If you live in Southern California, odds are you’ve never heard of Justin Kanew or Tennessee Holler. Odds are you don’t know about Justin’s battles with his state’s hard-right-bordering-on-authoritarianism Republican power players. Odds are you don’t know about Tennessee’s super loose gun laws, its love of mixing religion and public school education, its racist policies, its grotesque distortions of the Constitution.
Odds are you’re aware of little to none of that.
But Justin Kanew does.
The former filmmaker moved from Los Angeles to Nashville nearly a decade ago, and was horrified by what greeted him. So in 2018 he ran (and lost) a long-shot congressional bid, then shortly thereafter started up the Holler, which covers Tennessee politics via social media from (like this site) a leftward viewpoint.
And, for me, Justin isn’t merely a role model. He’s the role model. The dude is at the State Capitol multiple times per week, camera in hand, just waiting … waiting … waiting for the right representatives to walk by—then pounce and post the engagements on his wildly popular TikTok feed.
For example, there was this …
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And this …
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And this …
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Justin is an agitator. But a righteous agitator. Unlike dweebs like Frank Rodriguez, he’s not agitating for the sake of agitating. Unlike the Proud Boys, he’s not fake strutting around in a muscle T and Dracula mask. He went through the terror of having his house shot up (as his wife and kids were asleep), but refuses to flinch. He believes in righteousness. In exposing the truth. In taking on the dicks.
On the one hand, Tennessee is still Tennessee. Justin has made it no less conservative, no more progressive. But, on the other hand, he’s doing the one thing these folks absolutely abhor: He’s shining light on their antics, and making sure the public sees what, truly, is going on behind closed doors. He’s going straight up to the culprits and saying, “What the actual fuck? Why would you vote for that? Why would you support that?” And if they answer, they sound and look callous. And if they slink off, they look cowardly.
Here, in Orange County, we need people to attend meetings, to stick around afterward, to say to the jackasses, “What are you actually trying to do? Why did you run as X and now govern as Y? What are your actual motives?” We can’t allow them to scurry off like rats on the deck of a sinking ship. We can’t permit them to smile and praise Jesus before adoring crowds, then vote for ignorance and hate behind closed doors.
In short, we need more Justin Kanews.
PS: Justin recently appeared on my writing podcast, Two Writers Slinging Yang. The guy is fantastic.
I have been protesting and posting on socials and would like to do more, but I didn’t feel safe enough in this community (SC) to even put up a political sign for fear the crazy magas would harm our vehicles, home, etc.
Thanks for your work. After 36 years of my adult life behind the Orange Curtain, I moved to LA. We need more of you and the Shirley Grindles to hold the electeds' feet to the fire.