Meet the “Thielbillies” Reshaping the Republican Party

On four successive Monday evenings this fall, hundreds of people filed through metal detectors and past armed guards into the Grand Lodge of Tennessee, a Masonic temple in Nashville, for a very special closed-door event. Culturally, it was a world away from the cowboy-boot-clad bachelorette parties and honky-tonks of Broadway, the city’s nearby tourist drag. […]