A Kanew Political Low

“I can do a lot of damage with a little phone,” Justin Kanew proclaimed when the Nashville Scene ran a cover story on him last fall. The line was so buzzy that the alt-weekly used it as the subheading for the piece, which chronicled Kanew’s time turning his news site, The Tennessee Holler, into a must-read publication for those on a diet of lowest-common-denominator lefty pablum. But, as The Holler’s October 18th coverage of the plans for a Christmas parade in Cookeville, TN, proved, Kanew can do just as much damage without his favorite device. 

According to the Holler’s Instagram, “The city’s Christmas parade is requiring parade participants to sign a ‘Statement of Faith’ including a belief in the Bible, Jesus, only man-woman marriage, anti-abortion & anti-trans statements.” By noon that Friday, rumors abounded on social media that the Putnam County city of 35,000 had gleefully toppled the separation of church and state. The city’s PBS affiliate, WCTE, even released a statement about its support for inclusivity. For Kanew, the willfully inaccurate story was the latest in a line of stunts meant to ridicule the widely held religious beliefs of most Tennesseeans, a way for the California native to assert his superiority over folks down on the Cumberland Plateau, who, a couple weeks later, would vote for Donald Trump and Marsha Blackburn by a near 3/4ths majority.

The only problem is that the city of Cookeville wasn’t sponsoring the parade at all. In fact, it never had any direct role in an event that the Cookeville-Putnam County Chamber of Commerce ran for years. After a controversy erupted last year when the Chamber rejected the participation of activist group Upper Cumberland Pride over concerns that its overtly political messaging violated the parade’s family-friendly policy, the event was handed off to a group of business leaders and members of Life Church and The River Community Church, who decided on their 2024 theme: “Celebrating the Light of CHRISTmas.” 

With just a tap of his little phone, Kanew could have easily done what took The Pamphleteer less than half an hour: call the offices of Cookeville Mayor Laurin Wheaton, Putnam County Mayor Randy Porter, and the Cookeville-Putnam County Chamber. But that didn’t happen. According to representatives from the Chamber and County Mayor’s office, neither Kanew nor anyone from the Holler contacted them before the site broke the story or in the aftermath of the manufactured outrage that eventually reached the front page of the area’s local paper, the Herald-Citizen. While Mayor Wheaton could not be reached for comment after multiple attempts, members of her staff expressed confusion when asked about their contact with Kanew or The Holler.

The Pamphleteer also reached out to Kanew about his story’s sourcing via text. “I emailed the mayor [presumably Wheaton] and the parade organizer and they all ignored me,” Kanew told us. Despite admitting to neither receiving confirmation from the Cookeville-Putnam Chamber nor from the city, he ran with the false story. In the weeks since, the Holler has yet to issue a correction. Instead, it retconned the narrative into culture war fodder and patted itself on the back when WCTE decided not to televise the parade and a random atheist blog ran with the narrative.

Even if the Cookeville community has been rocked by the lies of a carpetbagger whose publication’s motto is “Always yell the truth,” its residents initially proved that they would have handled the conflict just fine without the help of the exploitative Blue State interloper. River Community Church Pastor Steve Tiebout crafted his Sunday, October 20th, sermon around the incident. Those up in arms over the church’s decision initially sought funds and a permit of their own under the moniker Inclusive Cookeville to host an all-inclusive version of the parade to compete with the one that raised Kanew’s ire.

In the wake of Kanew’s deceptive reporting, the city council voted to take over the official parade and asked both parties to abandon their plans as an attempt to paper over the controversy. Though the Herald-Citizen reported that the city had invited members of Inclusive Cookeville to join the team, Mayor Wheaton has not responded to The Pamphleteer’s questions about whether or not the pro LGBTQ+ group will have a float or other official presence during the proceedings. Regardless, several community groups that have participated in the parade for years and wish to remain anonymous to avoid causing further division have told The Pamphleteer they plan to sit this year’s event out for the first time.

As Kanew has routinely proven since he founded the Holler, he’s not in it for the robust discourse. But with his efforts to amplify and sensationalize the Covenant tragedy, and his role as Justin Jones’s most prominent mythmaker making little impact on the state’s politics, he’s now merely clinging to whatever notoriety he can until the next lucrative and shameless moment in the spotlight comes along. 

Those who proudly live in a holler don’t think much of the Holler. Unlike their Metro counterparts, they know a con man when they see one.