When a Tennessee Democrat openly says she’s running on the same agenda as a newly empowered New York democratic socialist, hardworking Americans should sit up and take notice. Aftyn Behn’s public praise for Zohran Mamdani and her insistence that his energy “helps” her campaign isn’t a quaint coattail theory — it’s a flag that national progressive experiments are being exported to our backyard.
Zohran Mamdani is not just a left-of-center mayoral hopeful; he swept into power running explicitly as a democratic socialist with an agenda to expand government control over housing, wages, and local commerce. That brand of politics works in Manhattan’s neighborhoods only because taxpayers there are already drowning in unaffordable costs and are willing to gamble on radical fixes — but it’s dangerous and tone-deaf to import those prescriptions to Tennessee.
Worse still, a resurfaced clip shows Behn trashing Nashville — saying she “hates” the city, its music, and its culture — while courting votes from the people she insulted. Conservatives shouldn’t call that “out of touch”; that’s political self-sabotage and an insult to every small-business owner, musician, and family who makes Tennessee what it is.
Brett Cooper, a conservative who actually knows Tennessee, didn’t mince words on The Will Cain Show when she blasted Behn’s comparisons and predicted voters would see right through that Manhattan-style rhetoric. It’s refreshing to hear someone from our side call out the hypocrisy: you can’t repudiate local values on a podcast and expect to credibly represent those people in Congress.
And of course, national Democrats smelled blood — House-aligned super PACs have already poured serious money into the race, turning a local special election into a testbed for bigger progressive ambitions. That nationalization of a Tennessee contest proves the point: this isn’t about pocketbook issues for locals so much as it is about advancing an ideological playbook across red states.
Patriots in Tennessee don’t need lectures from Manhattan activists or candidates who deride the very communities they seek to lead. This race is a clear choice between defending American common-sense values and importing a failed coastal playbook. Voters who love liberty, lower taxes, and local culture should make their voices heard and reject the notion that Tennessee needs to be remade in the image of New York’s radical experiment.
