Georgia On Our Minds

We've officially come full circle.

In the April of 2017, a special election was held in Georgia's 6th congressional district to replace Republican Tom Price, who was appointed to head Health and Human Services. The district had been reliably red since 1992 and seemed likely to be a Republican hold. But Democrats did not give in so easily. After a jungle primary in April, millennial and former John Lewis staffer Jon Ossoff emerged on the Democratic side to take on Karen Handel on the Republican side. As an R+8 district that Donald Trump won by 1% in 2016, the special election was seen as a harbinger for what the new American political landscape might look like. Would the women's march and the anger and disdain for Donald Trump translate into a political movement? Or would all that organizing simply be a flash in the pan that would give us a return to normalcy? 

Despite record numbers of fundraising and a number of high-profile endorsements, Ossoff came up just short in his bid, losing to Handel by 3.5 percentage points in the June run-off. The media, always giddy with an opportunity to paint Democrats in disarray, quickly ran with this story as to how the Women's March and all the subsequent organizing was all for naught. They were ready to anoint Donald Trump as invincible, based on the result of one single congressional race. Ossoff's inability to win in a district that was trending blue was clearly a sign that Democrats would be taking a step back rather than a step forward with their electoral organizing ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. The media was sold on the idea that the so-called "resistance" was nothing more than a flash in the pan. 

But as we all know, that was not the case. In the winter of 2017, we saw Virginia Democrats elect Ralph Northam in what was seen as another high-profile election in the Trump era. Not only did Northam win handily, but Virginia Dems won numerous seats in the state legislature, putting them painstakingly close to have a majority in both the lower and upper chambers. The media narrative of Dems being in disarray for some reason did not apply to Virginia, a state that was rapidly transitioning from purple to blue. Whereas the Ossoff loss gave the media some hope that the resistance was a mirage, the 2017 result in Virginia very much challenged that narrative. Heading into the 2018 midterms, the media did its best to downplay any potential "blue wave" even though polls showed that the 2017 Virginia result was no accident. 

And then the midterms hit. 

Exactly 40 seats were flipped from red to blue including Lucy McBath beating Karen Handel in Georgia's 6th Congressional district. While the media lamented the losses of high-profile Democratic candidates like Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum, and Beto O'Rourke, Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats rode this historical wave for unprecedented success. Electing Lauren Underwood in Illinois. Electing Sharice Davids in Kansas. A flipped seat in Oklahoma of all places. And a clean sweet of all 4 congressional seats in Orange County, a feat that had not been done since the Great Depression. Since several key races were not called until weeks after the election, the media intentionally chose to downplay Democrats' success. But the message was clear: for the first time, Donald Trump would have a check on his executive power. For the first time, many of us finally help hope that Donald Trump would finally meet some resistance head-on thanks to the Democratic Party winning the House of Representatives and actually holding him accountable for his actions.

Yet the work continued. Specifically, the work continued in states like Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia. Organizers and activists worked in these states to register new voters. New technologies were utilized to engage voters throughout 2019 and into 2020. Campaign staff got creative and "met" with community leaders despite working remotely and in some cases working from an entirely different state from which they were organizing. And critical figures like Stacey Abrams and LaTosha Brown in Georgia worked tirelessly behind the scenes to register, engage, and empower new voters of color. When Donald Trump insists he won Georgia, it's not because he believes his people didn't come out to vote for him. It's because he can't believe so many of those people voted against him. In his mind, people of color are still 3/5 of a person who shouldn't be allowed to cast a ballot. In his mind, there's no way he could lose without people of color somehow conspiring against him. And in his mind, he cannot grasp just how unpopular he actually is to people of color in Georgia.

So we stand here today, 42 months later, once again looking to Georgia. It's fitting that the New South gets to close the chapter on the dumpster fire that has been the Trump Administration. For 74 years, Trump's racism has had no consequences, yet here we stand with Georgia's Black voters being presented with an opportunity to hammer one final nail in Trump's political coffin. Because Donald Trump doesn't care about having a Republican Senate, he cares about winning. He can't pick Kelly Loeffler or David Perdue out of a lineup but if he can help them win, them it helps himself. It's all about his brand and if he loses, his brand takes a huge hit. As we've seen with the recently released tapes, Trump buys any and all conspiracy theories that excuses his horrific election performance. He is a narcissist in every sense of the term; he unjustly takes credit when he wins and refuses to recognizes his faults when he loses. 

There will be a lot for Democrats to overcome today in Georgia. But Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff have run impressive campaigns. Stacey Abrams and LaTosha Brown have proven themselves to be the future of the Democratic South and can and should have prominent roles in the Democratic Party moving forward. Georgia is officially a swing state, something we never thought we'd say back in June of 2017. For everything that has happened over the past four years, the emergence of Georgia as a key player in American electoral politics might very well be one of the most surprising. But it also perfectly encapsulates the dogged determination of thousands of community leaders and activists behind the scenes to overcome blatant voter suppression attempts by the modern-day Republican Party. It would only be fitting if it were Georgia, the state that couldn't quite bring it home for Jon Ossoff in 2017, could bring it home for both him and Reverend Warnock on Tuesday, delivering the Senate to President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris. 

That result would be the perfect end to the Donald J. Trump era in America.