Rant 611: Georgia on My Mind

“Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind.”
--Hoagy Charmichael & Stuart Gorrell
 
The second most important election of the last four years will take place on January 5th in Georgia, the state that provided the most surprising result on November 3rd when it went Democratic for the first time in a generation.
 
There are two formidable Democratic Senate candidates, Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Warnock, the head pastor at Atlanta’s iconic Ebenezer Baptist Church, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s pulpit, is pitted against Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler. Ossoff, a 33-year old entrepreneur, is up against Republican Incumbent David Perdue.
 
Here’s what Loeffler and Purdue have in common:

1. Both are credibly alleged to have used inside information to profit from the Covid-19 pandemic.
2. Both are outspoken racists. At an October rally, Perdue mockingly mispronounced Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris’s first name despite having served with her in the Senate for the last four years. His campaign also put out a doctored photograph of Ossoff, who is Jewish, altering the size of his nose, a classic Nazi trope. Both despicable outrages were naked appeals to the racist and anti-Semitic components of the Trump base. Loeffler, who owns the Women’s National Basketball Association’s Atlanta Dream, criticized her team for wearing uniforms that said “Black Lives Matter” in line with all the other WNBA teams. Her own players are actively working against her re-election.
3. Both supported Trump’s most disgraceful policies—ripping babies from their mother’s arms and putting them in cages; attempting to take away healthcare from 23 million Americans; remaining silent whenever Trump encourages white supremacists and QAnon conspiracy theories about Democrats eating children and similar nonsense.
4. Both want to terminate the Affordable Care Act in the middle of an out-of-control pandemic and relieve insurers from the Act’s prohibition against denying insurance on the basis of pre-existing conditions.
5. Both are avid proponents of the Jim Crow voter suppression tactics that cropped up in Georgia and around the country during the presidential election: closing down voting locations in minority areas; putting minority voters through ringers if they wanted to cast ballots; etc.
6. Both demanded the resignation of fellow Republican, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in spite of his running a clean and fair election that Joe Biden won in the state that was the poster child for suppressing the vote in 2018. They want to replace him with someone who will return Georgia to the good old days of rampant voter suppression and stolen GOP victories.
7. Both are spineless followers of Mitch McConnell’s blanket obstructionism that refuses to allow the Senate to get anything constructive done for the American people.
8. Both spew the Trump line about fraud and rigged elections absent any evidence, and lie about Ossoff and Warnock, both centrists, being socialists.
9. Both are complicit in Trump’s petulant attempts to trash democracy and bring down the nation in revenge for his electoral loss; his allowing Covid-19 to run rampant, spreading disease, hospitalizations  and deaths at record rates; and his decimation of our national security leadership that puts the nation at risk.
10. Both support the president’s efforts at impeding the Biden presidency by issuing a barrage of executive orders and regulations designed to make life difficult for the incoming administration. These two sorry excuses for Senators have no intention of working across the aisle.

 
In sum, these two Senate mediocrities are a terrible reflection on their state and the nation. If this despicable duo wins, Mitch McConnell will continue to control the Senate and roadblock everything the Biden administration wants to do to move the country forward out of the pandemic and the chaos and catastrophes of the Trump Era and back to a strong economy. Georgia surely can do better.
 
Ossoff and Warnock, in contrast, are both ethically grounded and have achieved success through hard work. They have the best interests of Georgians and the country in their hearts and minds. They both have records of good behavior, decency, humanity and empathy, in stark contrast to their sleazy opponents. Character counts.
 
Dick Hermann
December 4, 2020

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