One way to think of an election ballot, like the ones for next week’s Republican and Democratic primaries in Tennessee, is as a multiple-choice IQ test.

Some people would argue that anyone who asks for a Republican ballot has already failed that test. I have a friend who might agree. After a recent column in which I gave the Republican legislature some measure of credit for reasonable social studies curricula in Tennessee schools, he had this response:

“I just hate Republicans period, sad to say. I give them no quarter for anything, don’t want to hear their side of anything, don’t want them to talk, write, vote, exist.”

I take his comment as a mix of frustration and hyperbole. But it’s sometimes hard not to think of the folks on the other side as a bit – to use a word with some currency – unhinged.

Back to the IQ test: I don’t think voting Republican is an automatic fail. But much depends on which Republicans are voted for.

Take the race for the 5th Congressional District. I’ve been giving it a lot of attention of late, despite the fact that I won’t be voting in it since I’m no longer in that district. I haven’t moved, but that Republican legislature rejiggered the district lines and effectively disenfranchised Nashville’s Democratic majority. Unintentionally, its members allege.

Ha ha ha!

As a result of that redrawing, the longtime Democratic congressman Jim Cooper decided not to run for reelection, and Republicans started falling all over themselves to succeed him. So many Republicans, in fact, that the state party decided to thin the herd a bit by disqualifying several of them as interlopers.

That still left plenty: nine, including one who, for some reason, posts ads that show up in my Facebook feed. Perhaps, if you subtract politics, he is a fine fellow. Lover of cats. Respectful of elders. Soup kitchen volunteer. That sort of thing.

But you can’t really subtract politics from a discussion of someone running for Congress, and this guy’s politics argue for the kind of jacket that restricts movement. Or for handcuffs.

He is a firm proponent of the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Toward that end, he proposes to impeach and remove President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and, for good measure, Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson, all of whom he refers to as “illegitimates.”

When it comes to COVID, he proclaims the vaccine “does NOT work” and that “it does more harm than good.” In any event, “the pandemic is over!” he asserts, so why bother. He also sees nefarious roots to the whole episode:

“The communist Chinese government intentionally created the virus in the Wuhan lab and leaked it to the world to advance the communist new world order. Communism and Socialism is evil and must be removed from our way of life!”

“Communist” and “communism” figure prominently in his rants, words that in his definition seem to encompass a broad range of concepts with which he takes issue. Among his other goals upon election:

“We are going to fix our left wing brainwashing education system and STOP teaching communist concepts such as DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, MULTICULTURALISM, TOLERANCE, TRANSGENDERISM, SENSITIVITY, LQBQ+.”

There’s more: “We have to completely remove false ideas like transgenderism, evolution, 1619 Project, Critical Race theory and remove all secular curriculum out of our classrooms.”

There’s a whole lot to unpack in those two paragraphs, including some Trumpian abuse of uppercase letters. I find myself drawn to his assessment of evolution as a false idea. And wondering what is left if you “remove all secular curriculum” from classrooms. Is there a Tennessee Conservative Christian – his self-description – version of math?

I should also mention this: If elected and sent to Washington, it would not be his first visit to our nation’s capital. He was there Jan. 6, 2021, in a capacity the Justice Department, in its charges against him, has described as: “Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building or Grounds; Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds; Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building; Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building; and Theft of Government Property.”

He maintains that he was “peacefully present on January 6th,” and describes the events of that day as “The biggest government entrapment ever seen in America.” Maybe that will be his legal defense to the charges.

If so, I don’t see it working.

Not that any of the above is likely to matter. The chances for this fellow – it’s no accident I haven’t named him – to win are vanishingly small. But I’m curious to see how many people will actually vote for him.

Because they certainly will have failed the IQ test.

Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville. He can be reached at [email protected]