I started my first Saturday in my new hometown in rural Tennessee on a mission to explore it and take in all of the small-town charm. But first – coffee. What I came to find was that the town had no Starbucks, no Target, no long list of well-known restaurants. It would be a 40-minute round-trip drive just to get my iced shaken espresso. And that’s when it hit: I have officially left my comfortable Washington, D.C. orbit.
But you know what? That’s fine; I need to stiffen my weak citified spine.
What wasn’t fine was what I found out next. My new town had just been rocked by a massive local government corruption scandal. The mayor and two others were indicted on theft of funds, with the investigation claiming a whopping $450k was misused. The officials deny guilt, but the town reports a severe financial crisis. For a town this size, the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars can be a death knell.
For decades, this small town has run on manufacturing and farming. One of those hollowed-out regions, this area was dealt a massive gut punch by Chinese tire imports and the 2009 Obama tariffs. And now, soybean farmers are affected by the Trump tariffs. Suffice it to say, it’s no stranger to economic volatility, whether at the local or federal level.
And as a result, the city announced this year that the town’s annual Soybean Festival would be canceled due to the financial crisis.
In the Washington, D.C. world I’ve observed, if a budget is blown in Congress, that’s usually a challenge to bloat it even more. But in small-town America, residents live within the confines of their town budgets. It has a direct impact. And for this town, that means foregoing the four-decade-long bright spot that unites families and the whole community, the Soybean Festival. For urbanites, it may sound trivial, but small town fairs are massive cultural and economic drivers, and this one is no different. It’s not only a morale booster, but something folks plan for all year long. And that’s why when the announcement came down, the community said, “Enough.”
In a plot twist that can only be found in films like “It’s a Wonderful Life,” one local man has rallied a groundswell of community support to bring the Festival back to life. Not by demanding they spend money they don’t have, but by organizing different people from all over the town and organizing organic fundraising. It may have started with one resident willing to make the first phone call, but it only worked because dozens of others answered it. Their grassroots festival will be a fraction of the grandeur of festivals before, but locals don’t care. As one person posted, “You do not even know how much it means to me and my family that y’all are trying keep Soybean alive. Now I can possibly bring my children to enjoy the same atmosphere.”
It struck me, I’ve been lamenting and making a list in my mind of how disconnected I am to all of the civic activity in the District, yet here I am confronted with democracy in action, and I’m missing it. As they say here in Tennessee, when something is right in front of your face: “if it was a snake — it would’ve bit me.”
For those of us who work in and around D.C., it’s easy to think that important American affairs are captured in that one region…but are they? As we speak, Congress is in a stalemate over 2027 funding, struggling to agree on topline spending totals. In fact, they haven’t passed an on-time bipartisan funding agreement in seven years.
I’m sitting in a coffee shop in the middle of this tiny downtown, watching citizens come together, organize, and save their town. These people aren’t all best friends; I see them verbally duke it out on Facebook a lot. But they are all pausing whatever disagreements they have to come together for the common good. They don’t all make the Congressional salary of $174k, but they are pooling whatever money they can to create a functional budget for this modest grassroots fair.
Watching my new town rally around the Soybean Festival reminded me why “It’s a Wonderful Life” is such a heartwarming story. We remember George Bailey as the hero, but the film’s real lesson isn’t about one extraordinary man. It’s about an ordinary town. Bedford Falls survives because its people decide it is worth saving.
That’s exactly what I’m watching unfold in rural Tennessee.
I hope Washington remembers what my new hometown refuses to forget, that self-government is about more than the next election and political wins. It requires living within limits, setting aside personal grievances, and accepting responsibility for something larger than ourselves.
And I’ve certainly learned firsthand that the true American strength and grit of this country never rested solely inside the Capitol. It has always depended on ordinary Americans who refuse to let their communities fall apart.
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Emily Osment Davis is a writer and communicator with a background in non-profits and politics and a not-so-secret love of celebrity gossip. She covers the space where Hollywood meets D.C. — because sometimes the two aren’t so different. You may have read her work in Newsweek, USA Today, Fox News, and more.
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