đ˘ ALL ABOARD THE SS MUTINY
DUMMY OF THE WEEK
Welcome, friends. Itâs hump day, which isnât just about slogging through the week â itâs also about pausing to laugh at the absurdity of local politics. Most Wednesdays, we crown one lucky winner as Dummy of the Week. Itâs an honor reserved for those who make baffling decisions, put on ridiculous performances, or twist themselves into such knots of hypocrisy that all you can do is chuckle and hand them the dunce cap.
And this weekâs dummy? He didnât just stumble â he lost the map, tripped over the compass, and held a press conference from the poop deck while the ship lurched off course. Please rise and give a warm round of applause to the chairman of the Williamson County Republican Party, Steve Hickey â captain of the SS Mutiny.
Captain in Name Only
If the Williamson County Republican Party were a ship, Hickey would technically be the captain. But donât expect him at the wheel. This vessel has no course, no discipline, and no working rudder. The officers are off running their own schemes, the candidates are swabbing the deck with mud, and Hickey is standing there in his captainâs hat, insisting that everything is under control, all the while his own crew drills holes in the hull.
The first leak began back in August, when an email went out from WCRP officer Diane Chenard inviting candidates to a Franklin BOMA forum. The flyer looked polished enough, complete with patriotic branding and a moderator announced âon behalf of the party.â Everything looked official â until you noticed who wasnât invited. Matt Brown, the sitting alderman for Ward 2, a bona fide Republican incumbent running for re-election, was left off the list.
Was it a mistake? Sure â but not the kind you can wave off. This was a three-for-one blunder. Mistake number one: platforming Erinn Watkins, a Democrat donor with years of ActBlue, Obama, and Bernie Sanders contributions on her record. Mistake number two: giving equal billing to BK Muvvala, a crossover voter who has bounced in and out of primaries like heâs testing streaming services. And mistake number three: omitting the only actual Republican in the race, the incumbent alderman.
Three âmistakes,â all on one flyer. And just to show how easily and error-free these things get done: on October 6, Franklin Tomorrow and Williamson, Inc. will hold their own candidate forum. And wouldnât you know it? They got it right. They invited everybody â Brown, Watkins, Muvvala, the whole slate. If a civic nonprofit can manage basic fairness, then the county GOP should have too.
So no, this wasnât a harmless mix-up. If Hickey wants to deny he had a hand in it, fine. But it still smells fishy â and when the catch of the day is a Democrat donor and a crossover voter, you know the nets are rigged.
The Barbecue Broadside
Then came last Saturdayâs annual WCRP barbecue at Little Creek Farms. This should have been smooth sailing: a picnic atmosphere, families gathered, everyone smiling. Hickey had the makings of a unifying moment, with Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson and Senator Marsha Blackburn in attendance. They shook hands, gave remarks, and did their part â all in good faith.
Only after they were gone did Hickey hand the mic to Senate challenger Gary Humble. And the timing was no accident. Johnson and Blackburn were probably still in the parking lot shaking hands when Humble leaned into the microphone and asked, âWhat is our Republican majority General Assembly doing when the eyes of the world are not watchingâŚâ A line aimed squarely at the very supermajority Johnson helps lead. He followed it with, ââŚwe canât get [hand-marked paper ballots] out of committeeâŚâ â accusing Republicans in Nashville of blocking Trumpâs agenda.
By the time Humble finished, the scene was set: a challenger laying into his own party while the senators he was aiming at were likely just warming up their cars. It didnât look spontaneous. It looked plotted. A little ambush staged right at the county GOPâs picnic, a mutiny unfolding while the captain passed around pulled pork.
A Crew of Contradictions
Hickeyâs bench isnât deep, itâs a clearance rack â a couple of misfit candidates marked down and passed off as âgrassroots.â
Sure, thereâs Watkins, the ActBlue and Obama-Biden donor now recast as a Republican. But thereâs also Rodney Taylor, who is also running for Alderman, but get this â isnât even a bona fide Republican. He voted in the 2024 GOP primaries, but skipped 2020 and 2022, and in more than a decade of living in Franklin he hasnât bothered to cast a ballot in a single city election â not even the 2023 mayorâs race that made national news. Yet his daughter, Leigh Ann Cates, a WCRP officer, insists heâs the conservative choice. Imagine that. Under WCRP bylaws, Taylor himself wouldnât even qualify to vote in a GOP caucus because of his poor history.
And what do Taylor and Cates do with their time? They amplify social media that smears sitting Republicans as âRINOsâ and âdeveloper-owned sellouts.â The same posts, conveniently, plug Watkins and Taylor as the only âtrueâ conservatives.
So under Hickeyâs watch, the partyâs officers and candidates are busy calling everyone else traitors while pushing a Democrat donor and a primary absentee. If you can fog a mirror and squawk âRINOâ like a parrot, youâre apparently seaworthy for this voyage.
Captain of the Drama Club
If that werenât enough, Hickey recently revealed what kind of captain he really is. Not of a ship â but of a drama club.
At 2 a.m. on July 27, he blasted an email to half the state GOP leadership. The target was Nathan Beck, chair of the Williamson County Young Republicans. Instead of mentoring the next generation or handling differences quietly, Hickey accused Beck of subverting the party, demanded he either turn over his phone records to police or issue a public apology, and cited harassment statutes like he was writing courtroom dialogue. And he CCâd nearly every SEC member and state leader he could find.
It was less about resolution, and more about performance. Hickey turned a county-level squabble into a statewide spectacle, complete with ultimatums and threats. While his officers were busy amplifying attacks on Republicans, Hickey was picking fights with a twenty-something running the YRs. Leadership? No. It was GOP mutiny staged for an audience.
So when you stack it all up, the picture stops being serious and starts looking like satire. Hickeyâs crew managed to exclude a Republican incumbent from a Republican debate while elevating a Democrat donor. He turned his county barbecue into an ambush on his own party. Heâs propping up candidates who wouldnât even qualify under his own county bylaws, while his officers spend their time blasting out social media attacks on fellow Republicans. And when he isnât mismanaging events, heâs busy firing off 2 a.m. manifestos to half the state, picking fights with the Young Republicans.
This isnât leadership. This is a mutiny with no captain at the helm, a hyper-partisan ship lurching from one blunder to the next, fueled by hypocrisy and self-importance.
Congratulations, Chairman Steve Hickey. You are Dummy of the Week. Well earned.
Hereâs your trophy, Captain. May it rest next to the wreck of the Williamson County GOP, now charting a direct course for Davy Jonesâ locker.