Found a site without a paywall. https://www.anneapplebaum.com/2023/07/18/is-tennessee-a-democracy/

Damn, that's scary. I'm next door, in purple-ish Georgia, surrounded by cray-cray Florida, Alabama, & S. Carolina. And now Tennessee had lost the plot, too. I'm looking hard for some source of optimism.

I live in a degree of fear that my own neighbours will violent try to silence me for simply disagreeing with them. So no, its not a democracy, and no we are not free in TN.

As a "liberal" If you want to improve things, these are the types of things you must be willing to do. If you aren't willing to do things like the article describes, you aren't willing to fight.