that power to the people, that in this moment, when we worry about our democracy, it was very powerful to see that swing back. and i wonder what you have learned about the promise of democracy, about the power of voters in these last few months. we should all be concerned about the state of our democracy because the reality is, we have people who are turning our democracy into a mobocracy, for the mob rules, and not the people. we haven t realized, it was the exposure of myself and representative jones, but it was 140,000 people s voices. people who went to the polls, people who had advocated for the candidate, people who use the letter of democracy for us to be there in the first place. we had their voices taken away because of the abuse of power of the republican supermajority in tennessee. we should all be very concerned, the people who use their power to silence the voice of the minority. and to kick out to black, two of the youngest black lawmakers in the state of tennessee, tha
earlier, i spoke with one of the tennessee three who was re elected in thursday s special election justinj pearson. great to have you back on the show. i want to ask both you and your colleague were heavily favoured to win your districts, but how does it feel to have won your seat back? i am completely humbled and honoured that district 86 s representation has been restored. our district lost its voice temporarily, albeit due to the actions of the supermajority republican party in tennessee. and it wasn tjust the expulsion of one member or two members. it was people who had went to the polls just months before to get their voices heard, to make sure thatjustice was a priority and that democracy was able to prevail. but the reality is, we are dealing with the mobocracy in tennessee where there is an abuse of power and abuse of
about when we were saying that the democracy in our state is turning into a mobocracy, where the mob rules instead of the people rule. the majority of people in the tennessee want to see something done, but people legislature 10 abuse the power to do nothing. that unacceptable, a moral, it s time for us to do something. so justin jones, explain to me how this could go down. i don t mean this particular session, but the idea that you ve got a governor who is prepared to have some conversation about some things. not everybody is going to get what they want out of this thing, but there s some idea that when people get shot in schools and malls and movie theaters are your greatest fears getting rundown in this country in greatest fear for your children is that gonna die from gunshot wounds and gunshot killings are the largest killer of children across this country, there are conservatives. or a second amendment protectors. there are republicans would like to see some reasonable things do
extent that they are a snake eating their own tale. the reality is the fact that they don t want to have a special session that they are writing letters to the governor saying we don t want to do anything, we don t want to listen to the people of tennessee, it proves our point that the reason we got expelled wasn t because a breach of decorum. it was breaking the decorum of white supremacy, and the abuses of power and the silences to her community and her constituents, who are tired of inaction and thoughts and prayers when people in positions of power can do something to change the status quo. we are still hopeful that there will be a special session, that we will raise the issues of our community and our constituencies who say we need to pass common sense gun safety laws, which include republicans and conservatives and people who know you can protect and defend people having access to the second amendment without having people have weapons of warning people having guns who shouldn t
laptop, and they won t stop. i don t know how to stop them. americans are looking at this and saying, how do we bring back integrity to the government. all the left seems to understand is tit for tat. are we going to have a new republican administration come in and say, you know what, the only thing these people understand is like kind. if we get into that cycle, another going to descend into a mobocracy. you re looking to inform the future of other nations, a cautionary tale to go forward this way, because that back and forth is something we ve been seeing as the two sides go against each other. politically it s gotten nastier, more divided along the way, but this is a new level. victor, a last word, to compare history to where we are now, if you can, are we able to hold together as a republic? that s the big question right now, with this hanging in the balance, when current president faces something similar but treated very differently in