The Lube Guy, The Establishment, And Fighting For The MAGA Agenda In Blount County

Image Credit: Brian Stansberry / CC

By Mark Pulliam –

It’s a good thing I don’t have thin skin, or I might be upset that many people don’t like me. No, more accurately, many people HATE me.

Ironically, the people that hate me the most are generally not regarded as being on the same side. I am despised by the radical left/LGBTQ activist community, AND the Blount County establishment (represented by the Blount Partnership/Blount Lifestyle PAC/Blount County Banner/Bryan Daniels camp). Perhaps those two groups are on the same side after all. You may have heard me refer to Nathan Higdon, whom I have nicknamed “Lube Guy.” I go after Higdon from time to time on Blount County Conservative Sentinel and have written about him on my blog, Misrule of Law. Here is an example. 

Higdon is currently Chair of the Blount County Democratic Party, and he has spent years promoting the radical leftist/LGBTQ agenda in east Tennessee, as campaign manager for various Democrats (including, most recently, Maryville City Council member Sarah Herron), administrator of the Trump-hating Indivisible East Tennessee Facebook page, Knox Pride board member and volunteer, and as all-around left-wing activist. (The Blount Partnership used him as a model in the taxpayer-funded tourism brochure, as I explain here. Higdon is eccentric, extreme, and outspoken—the lunatic fringe of the Democratic Party.

I confess that I have said some unflattering things about Higdon and his LGBTQ friends at The Bird & The Book/Southland Books. They don’t like the attention l give to “Drag Queen Bingo” and other fringe activities held by Lisa Misosky at what I describe as Blount County’s misfit hub.

Likewise, the establishment doesn’t like the fact that I criticize local elected officials for their cronyism, nepotism, and water-carrying for Bryan Daniels/Industrial Development Board/developers.

Anyway, someone brought to my attention that Higdon, following the May 4 election, posted a long rant on his personal Facebook page (shown below) attacking yours truly and gloating that most of the Coalition’s endorsed candidates lost in the primary. 

I don’t begrudge him the hard feelings, but the post contains false and defamatory statements. I am licensed to practice law (in good standing) in two states, have never had an ethics complaint filed against me as a lawyer, and was not “run out of” Texas (or California) by demons, Black women, or otherwise. I retired as a partner from one of the largest and most prestigious law firms in the world, after having earned recognition as one of the “Best Lawyers in America,” and have been published in many of the nation’s leading newspapers and journals, including the Wall Street Journal. Not bad for a “mediocre ‘lawyer.’”

The lawsuit he refers to is a challenge to the city of Austin’s practice of granting “release time” to officers of a public employee union. I served as one of the taxpayer plaintiffs. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened in the lawsuit in support of the taxpayer position. The adverse trail court ruling (which was not unexpected in liberal Travis County) is currently on appeal. I expect to prevail on appeal.

Higdon’s post got 165 “likes,” including Candy Morgan (Maryville City School Board), Marjorie Stewart (Keri Prigmore’s mother), Bryan Coker (President of Maryville College), Sarah Herron (Maryville City Council), Melanie Tucker (Daily Times), Tessa Bright Wildsmith (Steve Wildsmith’s wife), various Democratic candidates (Bob Hanye), and many whose names I do not recognize. I am surprised that Higdon’s acolytes include Candy Morgan and Bryan Coker.   

One of the comments on Higdon’s post, by local musician Jeff Barbra, indicated that he “voted in the Republican primary to flush [Pulliam’s] candidates.  They all lost. BTW, that’s a first for me. I felt sick voting Republican.”

So here you have Blount County’s progressive community aligning with the establishment to vote AGAINST conservative Republican candidates.

In 2016 President Trump was elected because he took on the Republican establishment (RINOs, Big Business, rubber stamps for corporate lobbyists, Beltway bloviators) to stand up for ordinary middle-class Americans. Trump proved that often the Democratic and Republican Parties represent the same special interests. Trump promoted the MAGA agenda. We have an establishment and a swamp in Blount County, and our battle is not just with the lunatic left, but also with the so-called “Republican” status quo.

What should we call this agenda? Make Blount County Great Again? Keep Blount Conservative? Suggest a motto if you have any ideas.

We are making a difference. You don’t attract flak unless you are over the target. Higdon’s Facebook post sounds to me like an audible sigh of relief. Plus, I am obviously living rent-free in his head.

But we can’t let this become a contest between Mark Pulliam and the opposing forces in Blount County. The MAGA movement was larger than Donald Trump, and our movement has to be about more than a single person or personality.

Get engaged. Speak up. Support a candidate. Push back. Communicate with your elected officials. Register to vote and vote.

About the Author: Mark Pulliam writes from East Tennessee and is a contributing editor at Law & Liberty and blogs at Misrule of Law. A Big Law veteran, he retired as a partner in a large law firm after practicing for 30 years. He considers himself a fully-recovered lawyer.