Tennessee Republicans Aren't Trump Loyalists. They're Just Winning.
Betsy Phillips' theory is that the special session proves the TN GOP is in Trump's pocket. The simpler theory: Democrats redrew maps mid-decade in Illinois and New York for the same reason Republicans did it in Tennessee. Partisan opportunity, not religious devotion.
Their argument: The special session on redistricting was Tennessee Republicans doing Trump's bidding. Rep. Todd Warner draping himself in a Trump flag on day one is the proof. The TN GOP is now so loyalist that they will sacrifice Tennessee voters' interests to demonstrate fealty. Democrats, meanwhile, get the moral high ground and the photo ops.
Phillips is a smart writer and this column is her at her sharpest. It deserves a serious response, which means starting where she's actually right: Rep. Todd Warner showing up to the special session wearing a Trump flag was tacky, politically dumb, and a gift to her column.
It was also taken off within minutes by other Republicans.
That detail is missing from Phillips' framing because it complicates her thesis. If Tennessee Republicans were uniformly servile to Trump, who told Warner to put the flag away? The institutional GOP self-corrected publicly. That fact is buried inside her own column.
Mid-decade redistricting is what parties do when they have the votes and the opportunity. Texas Republicans did it in 2003 under DeLay. Illinois and New York Democrats did it in 2021 and 2022. Tennessee Republicans are doing it in 2026. Calling this one "Trump loyalism" requires forgetting the others.
- Texas 2003. Tom DeLay, House Republican Majority Leader, personally drove a mid-decade redistricting that flipped six House seats from Democratic to Republican. Texas Democrats fled to Oklahoma to break quorum. This happened during the George W. Bush administration, twenty-two years before Trump returned to office.
- Illinois 2021. Illinois Democrats redrew their congressional map specifically to eliminate a Republican seat. No special session was required; no presidential intervention was needed.
- New York 2022. New York Democrats attempted aggressive mid-decade redistricting that was eventually thrown out by the state's highest court for being too partisan. Democrat motive, Democrat execution.
- Maryland's 6th has been one of America's most-gerrymandered districts since 2011. Drawn by Democrats. Upheld by Democratic-appointed judges. Never called "Obama loyalism" by Phillips' Scene.
- Tennessee 2026. Republican-controlled state redrew Memphis-area maps in a special session. Phillips diagnoses presidential bootlicking. The 2003-2022 receipts suggest something simpler: partisan opportunity is what parties do when they have the votes.
When someone says the TN GOP only did this because Trump told them to...
Tom DeLay redistricted Texas mid-decade in 2003 during the Bush administration. Illinois Democrats did it in 2021. The pattern long predates Trump and crosses both parties. Calling it "loyalism" only when Republicans do it is the tell.
When someone says Warner with the Trump flag proves the whole caucus is captured...
Other Republicans made him take it off within minutes. That's the institutional GOP self-correcting in public. It's the part of the story that didn't make Phillips' column.
When someone says this is uniquely racist because it targets Memphis...
Charlotte Bergmann, a Black Republican from Memphis, is on the GOP ballot for the redrawn TN-9. If the goal was racial disenfranchisement on Trump's behalf, putting a Black woman on the Republican primary ballot is poor execution.
Where Phillips is right
The risk argument is realPhillips' closing point about gas prices and farm income is the strongest part of her column.
She writes: "Simping for Trump works only for as long as Trump remains popular in Tennessee. I'd want to know how many acres farmers will be planting this spring and how high gas prices are going to go before I'd bet on Trump's popularity being unshakable."
That's a real observation. The Tennessee GOP is making a bet that Trump's popularity holds through November. If gas hits $5 a gallon or farm income craters, the bet looks different. That's a normal political risk every party takes when it ties itself to a president's brand. It's a fair thing to flag.
What it isn't, though, is unique. Democrats made the same bet on Obama in 2010. They lost that bet in the midterms and called it a "shellacking." Tying your party's fortunes to a popular president is normal politics. It's not boundless loyalism. It's leverage with risk attached.
Where the framing breaks
Phillips' actual claim is bigger than risk. Her claim is about motive.
The column reads the special session as evidence that TN Republicans have surrendered their judgment to Trump. The Warner flag moment. The willingness to call a special session. The visible cheerfulness about the politics.
But every one of those data points has a simpler explanation that doesn't require Trump to exist at all.
- The special session was called because Tennessee Republicans wanted to flip a Memphis-area seat from Democratic to Republican. They had the votes. The opportunity was sitting there. They took it. That move requires zero loyalty to anyone.
- The Warner flag was one freshman legislator's stunt that other Republicans publicly killed within minutes. It's not party policy. It's a guy embarrassing his caucus.
- The visible cheerfulness from leadership is what you get when a party executes a partisan move successfully. Speaker Cameron Sexton is happy because his caucus delivered. That's not religious devotion. That's professional satisfaction.
The harder question Phillips' framing obscures: if Trump weren't president, would the TN GOP still have called this special session?
The honest answer is yes. The math worked. The opportunity existed. The seat was winnable. The party had the votes. Republican Texans flipped six seats in 2003 with George W. Bush in the White House. Democrats redrew Illinois in 2021 with Biden in the White House. Presidents matter politically. They don't matter mechanically.
"Phillips wants this to be a Trump story because that frames it as moral failure. The simpler story is that parties with votes use them. Tennessee Republicans have the votes."
The Bergmann complication
If the special session were really about presidential loyalty wrapped in racial disenfranchisement, the most likely Republican to win the new TN-9 wouldn't be Charlotte Bergmann.
Bergmann is a Black Republican from Memphis. She's been running for this seat for years. She's on the executive committee of the Tennessee GOP. Under the new lines, she's one of several Republican candidates in a primary where the eventual nominee is favored to flip the seat in November.
If Bergmann wins the GOP primary on August 6 and the general election in November, the "racist gerrymander targeting Memphis on Trump's orders" will have replaced a white Democrat with a Black Republican woman.
Reasonable people can decide whether that's a good outcome. What it isn't is a clean fit for the loyalism-and-disenfranchisement frame.
What's actually going on
Tennessee Republicans have a 27-6 majority in the state Senate, a 75-24 majority in the state House, and 64% of the statewide popular vote in 2024.
When a party has those numbers, it does what parties have always done: it converts political dominance into legislative wins. Texas Democrats did it in 1990. California Democrats do it every cycle. Illinois Democrats did it in 2021. The mechanics don't change. The party label of the people doing it changes, and so does the framing the Scene applies.
You don't have to like the Tennessee map. You don't have to think mid-decade redistricting is good for democracy. The redistricting post on this site argued the opposite: independent commissions like Michigan's and California's are a better answer than partisan map-drawing by either side.
What you don't get to do, in good faith, is treat this episode as uniquely a story about Trump when it's actually the latest episode of a thing both parties do whenever they have the leverage.
Questions to ask yourself
- If Tennessee Republicans are uniquely captured by Trump, why did other Republicans make Warner take the flag off within minutes?
- If mid-decade redistricting is presidential loyalism, what was Tom DeLay's Texas 2003 plan? What was Illinois 2021? What was New York 2022?
- Is "the party in power redistricts to its advantage" a Trump phenomenon, or a 200-year-old American political tradition?
- If the goal was racially disenfranchising Memphis on Trump's behalf, why is the most likely Republican to win the redrawn TN-9 a Black woman?
- Would Phillips have written this column if Cameron Sexton were calling the same special session with Bush in the White House?
Read about Texas 2003
The cleanest test of whether mid-decade redistricting is a Trump phenomenon or a normal one is to read about the Texas 2003 redistricting under Tom DeLay. The Texas Tribune has good coverage at texastribune.org. The mechanics are identical to what just happened in Tennessee. The motive was Republican advantage. The president at the time was George W. Bush. Ten minutes of reading is enough to test whether the loyalism frame survives historical context.