These Morgan Wallen fans are ride-or-die. The 'Swifties' of country music. Nashville City Council member Jordan Huffman is facing harassment from countless fans of the massive country crooner.
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Before deleting the post on X, Huffman detailed some of the threats he faced online. "It's one thing to attack me for a vote, but coming for my family is a bridge too far," he expresses. "In the past 24 hours, we have been threatened in multiple ways. One message indicated that my wife was going to get raped while I was forced to watch. Another posted pictures of the inside of our home. Over a damn sign."
City Council Denies Wallen's Sign Proposal
This comes on the heels of the Nashville City Council collectively deciding on the future of Morgan Wallen's sign for his new bar. Aesthetically, it makes sense. Additionally, putting his name on the side of the building just makes for good advertisement. Considering that his This Bar & Tennessee Kitchen opens up over the Memorial Day weekend, a sign only makes things convenient for marketing.
The city council didn't see it this way. Huffman, in particular, gives a pretty firm stance in his argument against the sign. "He gives all of us a bad name. His comments are hateful, his actions are harmful and he don't belong in this town as far as I'm concerned," he states. "I'm tired of this city bending over to just make anybody happy that makes a comment that they want to."
In some sense, I understand. Sure, the sign isn't hurting anybody, it doesn't make the city inherently safer. You can sigh about the 'politics' of this situation. It could even be argued that this rejection will only grow Wallen's feverish fanbase and their desire to support him.
At the end of the day, it's bigger than that. If the city council didn't feel as if Wallen is a good influence, it's pretty hard to deny that. Wallen still faces intense backlash for drunkenly saying the n-word. He still throws chairs off of the roof of bars and gets arrested for it. If the council's job is to negate a bad public image of Nashville, little things like this is what they have to do.