Aiming to 'radicalize Main Street,' Christian nationalists set sights on tiny Jackson County, Tennessee

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/confronting-hate/aiming-to-radicalize-main-street-christian-nationalists-set-sights-on-tiny-jackson-county-tennessee


NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — They want to go back to an America before the civil rights movement "ruined everything." They want to kick out legal immigrants even if they became U.S. citizens decades ago. And they want to put women back where they think they belong.

If necessary to achieve their goals, they are prepared to accept a Protestant dictator who will rule according to their own interpretation of what it means to be a Christian.

Now, an exclusive NewsChannel 5 investigation has discovered that those Christian nationalists have set their sights on a remote Middle Tennessee county, hoping to attract hundreds, even thousands, of like-minded people from across the country as part of efforts, in the words of one activist, to “radicalize Main Street.”

That effort — with Christian nationalist podcasters Andrew Isker and C. Jay Engel leading the way — is targeting tiny Jackson County and the county seat of Gainesboro, located about 90 minutes northeast of Nashville in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Census data shows Jackson County is home to an estimated 12,711 people.

"We're building a town, right? We're building a community there,”Isker said during a July podcast when he and Engel first announced their move to Tennessee.

And they are recruiting others to join them, hoping to spread their extremist ideology across the state of Tennessee.

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