DECEMBER 8, THURSDAY

WARNOCK AND WALKER

Tuesday night after attending the basketball game Kathy stayed with Caroline at her apartment and Tom and I returned to our very comfortable hotel and watched election returns.

As everyone in the United States knows this was Election Day in the state of Georgia. The every two year Midterm election was actually a month ago on November 6. The result of that election was that the Democrats did much better than expected and the Republicans much worse. Usually on the first midterm election of a new presidential four year term the party in power loses a great number of seat both in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Republicans gained power in the House of Representatives by a very slim majority but the Democrats managed to win 50 seats in the Senate which allowed them, because of the deciding vote by the Democratic Vice-President, Kamala Harris. But one state was left undecided, Georgia, because in Georgia a state law required that the winner get 50% of the vote. The Reverend Warnock, minister of Martin Luther King’s church in Atlanta, a compassionate and selfless, very intelligent and thoughtful person got the most most votes but just barely missed getting 50%, so a runoff was scheduled in a month.

The rationale behind Georgia’s runoff election law was to prevent a Black candidate from being able to win. If a Black candidate was close to winning the run-off election when less Blacks would be able to get off work to vote along with other schemes to lower the vote of Blacks to vote would give the White establishment time to make certain their candidate won.

And that is what they tried this time, limiting the number of early voting days and trying to eliminate Saturday when Blacks would be free to vote.

The Reverend Warnock is Black and the white establishment didn’t want him to win. So they had run a Black candidate, Hershel Walker, who would beholden to the White establishment and would vote straight Republican. A Republican candidate would split the Black vote they figured and would surely win.

But the wrong man, Donald Trump, picked the Black candidate, and picked the Black candidate who entirely because Hershel Walker would be loyal to him, not becuause he would be a thoughtful Senator concerned with the welfare of his fellow Georgians.

Tom and I watched the returns come in on CNN. First Warnock was ahead by 15,000 but his lead shrunk and then Walker was ahead by 800. But were continually told that the returns were slower from heavily Democratic Atlanta, Georgia’s population center. And Warnock finally pulled ahead by 100,000 votes.

But the shock to me from the evening was the closeness of the race. Warnock got 52% of the vote and Walker 48%. I was glad Warnock won and would have been horrified if Walker had won, but even with Warnock’s win I was still horrified.

The only thing that Hershel Walker had achieved in his life was to be big and powerful and to be able to run fast. For that he won the Heisman trophy for outstanding college football player. Georgians were delirious about him.

But in every other way he was an obviously awful candidate. He beat his wife, ignored his kids, paid for abortions for women with whom he had illicit sex (while seeking the anti abortion vote by publicly opposing abortion), lied about his education and his business dealings, seemed to have little understanding of politics or anything else and was almost incoherent as a speaker whose only policy statements were about apposing gay people and constant references to God. No one was fooled by him, even the people who voted for him, and almost half of Georgia voted for him. Everyone knew he was a dud, a doofus, a tongue tied guy who had once run fast. Blacks were embarrassed about him and voted against him and so did enough appalled thinking white people who either voted against him or didn’t vote at all.

What was so horrifying was to realize that MAGA tribalism ran so deep in Georgia that half the state would in a clear eyed but nose holding way vote for him.