The Intercept, a left-of-center publication, has published a new article that tries to connect U.S. Representative Jim Cooper (D-TN-05) to slavery and segregation.
The article, which The Intercept published late last week, links Cooper to what it calls “a segregationist political dynasty on his father’s side” and slaveholders on his mother’s side.
Members of Cooper’s communications team did not return The Tennessee Star’s requests for comment on Wednesday about the article.
The article said Cooper “has stoked the ire of Nashville progressives from his long-held conservative perch within the Blue Dog caucus.”
“He has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars from the defense industry over the course of his career, and he currently serves as chair of the House Subcommittee for Strategic Forces. Leading the committee overseeing space weapons, nuclear arms production, and missile defense, Cooper emerged as one of the most vocal supporters of former President Donald Trump’s Space Force, the sixth branch of the U.S. military,” according to The Intercept.
“Cooper’s unique allegiances and history of hyperconservative political positions have put him at odds with the moderate Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., whose leadership he voted against in 2019.”
The Intercept then faulted Cooper and said that he “has hardly made combating inequality, racial or economic, central to his political project.”
Members of the Knoxville-based Justice Democrats announced in April that Nashville resident Odessa Kelly will oppose Cooper. Her platform advocates the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.
Kelly accused Cooper of siding with the rich and powerful. In an emailed press release, Justice Democrats described Cooper as “a corporate Democrat” who has held office for more than three decades and is “out-of-touch” and takes hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporate PACS.
Justice Democrats formed in the wake of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s presidential election. Justice Democrats’ stated goal is to change the Democratic Party from within by electing more progressive candidates.
Cooper has represented Tennessee’s Fifth Congressional District since 2003.
Robby Starbuck, the son of Cuban refugees and a Republican, announced late last year that he will run against Cooper in 2022.
Starbuck said at the time that his approach to campaigning and representing constituents will differ greatly from Cooper and past Republican candidates. He attributed his unique approach to his background.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Damn the Coopers, both of them! I moved away from Nashville after that mayor John Cooper led a fascist parade while wearing a mask, all while allegedly free Nashvillians were denied by him the right to attend a licensed fireworks display in celebration of our country’s founding. He was a slavemaster telling all us patriotic slaves to stay home and shut up! To hell with them both sacks of crap from the same hole! I believe that John Cooper let our courthouse be set afire with police officers standing yards away, ordered to not intervene. I think perhaps for me, just appeasement from him would be that he should get down on one knee and kiss my fed-up ___ for forgiveness first, before he has the audacity to again, ask for my vote. My vote matters to me! I’m patriotic and also conscientious and concerned about spread of disease, so with a little bit of notice, I’ll disinfect and bend over for him, because I believe in second chances for everybody, don’t you?
Truth be told, Cooper is a closet Republican. His attempt to out-conservative Fred Thompson in his unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate to fill out Gore, Jr.’s unexpired term backfired when he tried to out-Republican Thompson. Instead of winning any new conservative votes, he ended up losing progressive votes, doing far worse than Sasser that year did when he ran for a full fourth term against Bill Frist.
If the Intercept’s article about Cooper is true, he and at least his family’s ancestors on both his maternal and paternal side have blood on their hands with their deep involvement in the slave trade and prison industrial complex. I did not know that the daughter of his great great grandfather owned large numbers of slaves whose names she listed at the Nashville Belmont Mansion and who had a street, Acklen Avenue, named after her. I was so flabbergasted about this because Acklen Avenue and Belmont Mansion were within walking distance of the home I grew up in as a child. To think I knew nothing of this horror in my own neighborhood for seventy years horrifies me.
Well then, Liberals DO eat their own!
It’s good to see old Jimmy feeling the love! But what did he expect? This is what happens when you give radical, ideologically driven Leftists an inch. They try to take a whole District!
And they wonder why we cling to our Bibles, and our Constitutions. At least we have a “true north” to fall back on when we stray. They just wander farther and farther from the truth, eating their own as they go!
R u kidding? Cooper is a closet Republican!
the left eating their own. delicious.
You play with the bull, you get the horns.
Cooper and his political family are career grifters that have lived off the taxpayers long enough, he and his brother John “The Taxman” Cooper need to go, a change is needed.
This is all for show! Jim Cooper is a Nancy Pelosi loyal follower. Cooper has been exposed as the liberal he really is! Jim and Mayor John Cooper, both have made promises to the voters and then broken them. Please Tennessee legislature break up Jim Copers congressional district and make it competitive so the voters of Davidson county have a choice! We have had enough of the Cooper’s at the public taxpayers money! Both of them will be defeated and out of office in-sequence! Jim out in 2022 and John will be out of the Mayor’s office in 2023! The Coopers have both voted for new taxes and brother John supported a 32% property tax increase in Nashville! Nashville voters need a competitive district so the best ideas will win!
I could not agree more.