Article snippet: Sen. MORE’s (R-Tenn.) decision to retire when his term ends in 2021 marks what could be the end of a genteel era of politics that is increasingly subsumed by more conservative elements within the Republican Party — both in Tennessee and across the country. Since joining the union in 1796, Tennessee’s political geography has been defined by its Grand Divisions, the three regions each represented by a star on the state flag. Until the last generation, two of those regions — West Tennessee, with its population center in Memphis, and Middle Tennessee, based around Nashville, were as reliably Democratic as anywhere in the rest of the Solid South. But East Tennessee stood out, an island of Republican red in the vast sea of Democratic blue. The region’s small-r republicanism was a legacy of the Civil War, when most counties in the eastern third of the state voted to remain with the Union, rather than secede. “If there is an area of the state that is truly committed to the Republican Party, that would be it,” said Bill Brock, who in 1970 became just the second Tennessee Republican elected to the U.S. Senate since direct elections began in 1914. “It was very much abolitionist and unionist.” To this day, only one congressional district in state history, the Knoxville-based 2nd District held by retiring Rep. MORE Jr. (R), has never been held by a Democrat. Most of the Tennessee Republicans who win statewide offices come out of the east. Brock hailed from Chattanooga. His se... Link to the full article to read more