Activists Make Horrible Elected Officials. Justin Pearson Is About To Learn That Lesson (Though He'll Never Admit It)

 

In 21^st century America with electoral politics almost always dysfunctional and a media that has always rewarded spectacle over substance activism has taken center stage as never before – and more and more the people at the center have completely and total misread how it's supposed to work.

Activism is all about the immediate: drawing attention to a problem in as attention gathering away as possible to raise awareness. Whether or not it actually makes things better for the cause at the center of it is almost never the point: it is about the rage that the young feel about the unfairness of the world.  And in a world increasingly lived on social media these activists translate the number of cameras at events or the crowd sizes or the number of followers on the internet as a sign that the world is on their side.

But in the 21^st century none of the social movements have led to any changes in policy which are the only way to resolve these issues. From the marches against the War on Terror and the War in Iraq, Occupy Wall Street, the marches against policing in across the country, whether Defund the Police or Black Lives Matter or all of the protest movements done regarding anything that Trump or the Republicans have done, these movements have objectively changed nothing for the American people, let alone globally. Because the media only cares about the story at the moment and because social media focuses on the bubble, these elementary facts are essentially ignored by all involved. 

The only way to bring about lasting change is through electoral politics. And here is the fundamental divide: while activism is popular among the left-wing of the Democratic Party at a national level, it rarely brings about electoral success for those involved. This is particularly true for those who try to serve in deep red states where the cause of conservatism is fertile for attention by the national media but almost never leads to political success. Wendy Davis drew much attention for her filibuster in the Texas Statehouse against limited abortion rights in 2013 (a speech that only delayed the vote until a later session) but when she ran for Governor against Greg Abbott she lost by nearly twenty points.

It's true that some activists have in recent years managed some electoral success as members of the Justice Democrats but it happens infrequently even there. Cori Bush needed two tries to win the Democratic Primary in Missouri and while she managed to serve two terms by her second term she'd become such a controversial figure on so many issues that the party actually primaried her in 2024 – and she was defeated. She was unbowed by that defeat and made it very clear she learned nothing from it – and she's currently trying to win her seat back this year.

For all the increasing numbers of the Justice Democrats victories this past election cycle its worth remembering that for all their efforts they've only managed to win in deep blue districts in Democratic states. They've yet to flip a district from red to blue in five cycles. And that brings me to Justin Pearson, their candidate for the Tennessee 9^th.

Pearson was born in 1995 in Memphis. Even as a child he was an activist in the student government. In 2020 he co-founded the environmental advocacy group Memphis Community Against pollution. A campaign to stop the Byhalia Pipeline from being built in Memphis he was joined by Justin Timberlake and Al Gore in successfully stopping the pipeline. In January of 2023 he won a special election to the Tennessee House of Representatives. At 28 he was the third youngest lawmaker serving into that body. It should be noted he was running unopposed in that district.

Not long after Tyre Nichols was killed by the Memphis police during a traffic stop. Pearson stated that he intended to introduce a bill to prevent police officers with criminal records from transferring across departments. He said he would serve on the Criminal Justice Committee in the chamber – a big claim in a body that had a supermajority of Republicans.  While being sworn in he wore a dashiki.  House Republican David B. Hawk commented on dress norms for the House, saying a tie was expected. This should have been a sign that Pearson was more interested in being an activist then a politician.

After the Covenant School shooting in Nashville Pearson joined a March 30 protest for gun control reform at the state capitol alongside Gloria Johnson and Justin Jones who would soon become known as the 'Tennessee 3'. Not long after there was a vote to expel all three members and Pearson and Jones were. Johnson was spared by one vote.

Regardless of what one things of the Tennessee lawmaker's actions or the movement to expel them Pearson's comparison of his removal from the chamber to the crucifixion of Christ is the kind of hyperbole one is far more used to POTUS whenever he claims something is 'the worst thing that ever happened to him'. By contrast this was the best thing that could have happened to Pearson: immediately afterwards Vice President Harris voted them in Memphis and President Biden personally called them.

Pearson was unanimously voted back by the commissioners and went on to win the general election. He was reelected in 2024, against an independent not a Republican. Pearson in March of 2025 presented a bill to repeal Tennessee's permitless carry policy. Again the heavily Republican Body this was going to be a non-starter. Pearson has also referred to ICE as a 'domestic terrorist organization' and a 'tool of white supremacy'.

In four years Pearson had introduced several bills of legislation in the house including increasing minimum wage for state employees, restoring voting rights of convicted felons and increasing healthcare coverage for individuals below the federal poverty level. None of them even got close to out of committee. (He is on several committees, none of which is criminal justice.) None of that stopped Pearson's star from personally rising and his speaking at the DNC on August 20^th, which did nothing to help Tennessee from going to Trump.

To be a good representative in the past one must work with one's colleagues and compromise in order to get things done. The ideal elected official has a utilitarian philosophy, believing in doing the most good for most people. Activists reject this approach in favor of raising awareness to the cause – and just as often, themselves. In Pearson's short term he has favored a confrontational approach which would always be problematic even if the Tennessee statehouse did not have a Republican supermajority. In short he was one of the Justice Democrats ideal choices to run for elected office.

In October of 2025 Pearson announced that he was going to campaign for the Tennessee 9^th districts with the full support of the Justice Democrats and Leaders We Deserve. This committee was headed by David Hogg who'd been fired as Vice Chair from the DNC for refusing to sign a pledge to stop primarying incumbent Democrats. A poll taken in February of 2026 showed him and the incumbent Steve Cohen in a virtual tie.

Then on April 29^th Senator Marsha Blackburn posted her support of redistricting Tennessee's congressional map, following the Supreme Court decision that partially overturned Section 2 of the voting rights act. Two days later Governor Bill Lee signed a proclamation that called for a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly to review the state's Congressional maps. In two days the new map was approved. One of the key decisions was to turn Cohen's district from D+ 23 to R+11. Immediately afterwards Cohen withdrew his candidacy.

In a future article I will be writing about the Voting Rights Act and the recent Supreme Court decisions that have followed. What I want to deal with here was how Pearson dealt with it. Understandably he was angry about it and gave the usual buzzwords about what a blow this was to democracy and race relations. In Pearson's case, perhaps more than any other elected official in America, his anger had to contain a very specific self-interest. Because rather than being guaranteed a seat in Congress like so many of his colleagues who had already won their primaries and the one that followed Pearson now has to do something that no Justice Democrats has ever done: flip a red district blue.

In previous articles I've written about how for all the publicity about the Justice Democrat and the Squad representing the progressive fighters of America they have been very selective about where they pick their battles in the last two elections. Because every time they try to run in a district that is anything other than deep blue, they lose and usually lose badly. The same year that Pearson was first elected to the statehouse Odessa Kelly was running under the Justice Democrat label in the 7^th district. She only received 38 percent of the vote.

That doesn't bode well for Pearson who to this point has never had to run against a Republican in his entire, albeit brief career. And considering that's he running in a state that Trump carried with 64 percent of the vote two years ago and where  only three counties went for Harris at all; to say this is an uphill battle is an understatement. 

Justice Democrats utterly stink at general elections, mainly because they almost never make it there in the first place and when they do they're in such familiar territory that they don't have to worry about the Republicans. All of the things that would have been an asset to Pearson in a Democratic primary are going to be a liability in the general in a way they just aren't  for Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez.  And that's before you consider that everything in Pearson's behavior has been designed entirely to inflame Republican voters, who he's now going to have to convince that he's on their side – something he's never done in four years in politics.

Pearson, without intending to, has become the litmus test for all of the Justice Democrats in a way that none of the others who've won this year can be. Pearson may not be as radical as some of the more recent members of this party but his positions are so much more out of the mainstream then the voters of his state that his election is now more significant than those who are. A victory here would be more impressive and groundbreaking that even Chevalier's primary win because it would argue that the message of the progressive can cross ideological boundaries – something that so many progressives have claimed for decades before this despite no electoral evidence to the contrary.

However if he loses – and more likely how large the margin of defeat is for Pearson  – it will confirm to Democratic leadership in a very conclusive way that the message of the Squad and their colleagues does in fact have limits beyond the deep blue circles of progressives.  This combined with how many swing districts end up going Democratic this November – which as I've written involve many states where the left has scored victories – will give the clearest argument yet that a centrist path forward is possible for the Party and will likely buttress any argument going forward in future elections.

For a man who has spent his life being a proud activist one would think Pearson would be up to this fight and there is a part of me that wants him to succeed. The realist in me, however, thinks that Pearson will meet the fate of so many of his colleagues who've tried this way before and lost badly  - and like so many of them, will only take away the message that they're on the right side of history and the rest of the world is wrong.