If there is one person to whom Democrats should doff their hats to today, it is Stacey Abrams. She lost a narrow race for governor of Georgia to Brian Kemp in 2018 when Kemp, who was then the secretary of state and thus is charge of running the elections, pulled out all the stops to hinder voting by poor and minority communities.
Because of her impressive showing in spite of these massive obstacles, Democrats saw her as a future star and tried to recruit her to run for other offices. But she decided that what she wanted to do was fight vigorously to overcome the registration and voting injustices in her state and she has been indefatigable in pursuit of that goal. And now we see the results of that effort: Joe Biden won Georgia and now Democrat Raphael Warnock has won one senate seat and Jon Ossoff is very likely to win the other. These will have a far bigger impact on the national political scene than if Abrams had won the election to become Georgia’s governor or to some other office, because it gives control of the senate to the Democrats. The expected wins by both Democrats also further solidifies my reputation for getting election predictions wrong.
Where should she go from here? It is clear that Abrams knows how to register and turn out voters so perhaps the best position might be to be chair of the Democratic National Committee where she can apply her skills nationwide to all the elections.
When Stacey Abrams declined to run for the Senate and focus on voting reform and mobilization, there was a LOT of skepticism in response. But she had a vision, she knew what her state needed in this moment, and she followed through on it. Thank goodness. A leader of leaders.
— Charlotte Clymer 🏳️🌈 (@cmclymer) January 6, 2021
As a result of her efforts, the smug and odious Mitch McConnell will no longer be majority leader and I cannot tell you how pleased that makes me. It is clear that he loved the power that came with that position and used it to gloat. As Jane Mayer wrote in a profile in the April 2020 issue of The New Yorker, those who are close to him say that McConnell has never had any guiding principles, he just wants power for its own sake. Being minority leader will be a huge letdown for him. We should have no doubt that he will use all manner of parliamentary tricks to try to gum up the works but it will not be the same. In addition, and even more importantly, all the committee chairs will now be Democrats and they will have a majority on each committee which makes a huge difference in what legislation is brought to a vote.
Trump hates Abrams. In the infamous Saturday phone call with Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, he attacks her, ascribing to her enormous powers of fraud. Trump is the master of projection, ascribing to others his own faults.
Look. Stacey, in my opinion, Stacey is as dishonest as they come. She has outplayed you . . . at everything. She got you to sign a totally unconstitutional agreement, which is a disastrous agreement. You can’t check signatures. I can’t imagine you’re allowed to do harvesting, I guess, in that agreement. That agreement is a disaster for this country. But she got you somehow to sign that thing, and she has outsmarted you at every step.
…And Stacey Abrams is laughing about you. She’s going around saying these guys are dumber than a rock. What she’s done to this party is unbelievable, I tell you.
This is not to say that Trump did not play a role in losing Georgia. His attacks on Republican election officials there and his claims that the system cannot be trusted has led to local Republicans blaming him for the relatively low turnout in Republican areas of the state.
Gabriel Sterling, a top Republican official in the Georgia secretary of state’s office, blamed Donald Trump for the party’s potential losses tonight.
Sterling told CNN that, if David Perdue and/or Kelly Loeffler lose, then the blame for that will “fall squarely on the shoulders of President Trump and his actions since November 3”.
Sterling, who has repeatedly refuted Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud in the November election, said the president’s evidence-free assertions sent a message to Republicans that their votes would not matter.
Sterling also said Trump was singlehandedly responsible for a “civil war” among Georgia Republicans since 3 November.
Text from a GOP strategist: "thanks alot Donald"
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) January 6, 2021
So, yes, thanks Donald!
Malcolm X, in his “ballots or bullets” speech said that once black Americans realize they are a voting bloc, it’s all over for the south -- because if black Americans vote as a bloc, they can swing most elections. Stacey Abrams took that to heart and did the hard work -- not appealing to mythical “republicans who are on the fence”, but bringing in new voters and overwhelming them.
I do think the republicans are vulnerable, right now, to democrats basically agreeing with them “you are RIGHT lets have a bipartisan investigation into voter fraud and vote suppression.” Vote fraud AND suppression are a serious issue -- it should be stomped out. Oh you mean you don’t want to talk about suppression? Why not, pray tell?
Black women continue to save America. The notable exception being Condi Rice….
On the flipside, the saddest man in America today may be Brian Kemp. Republicans hate him for not delivering his state to Trump, Democrats have no love for him (unlike for Raffenberger) because we still haven’t forgiven him for stealing his own election. Talk about someone whose political future is toast. I hope he has some nice hobbies for when his term is done.
@1
They will try to use fraud claims to do further suppression, of course — their standard playbook.
But there definitely should be a bipartisan commission on fraud, to strive to restore faith in the election if nothing else. Biden should ask Romney or Sasse or some other Trump-hating Republican to be in charge — that’s the one place where I would like to see a Republican as a leader, since Republicans are the ones who need to be convinced.
Marcus, do you have any comment about what happened yesterday in the Pennsylvania senate?
I read just now that Biden has chosen Merrick Garland for Attorney General. It’s a nice gesture. I hope he’s up to it; being a chief prosecutor is not really the same job as being a justice.
Ossoff’s lead over Perdue has gone up to 0.6 points (nearly 25,000 votes). If it stays as is, or climbs more, that puts it beyond recount in Georgia.
Mano:
+ 1
@Reginald Selkirk: I would have said yesterday that it’s a sideshow but today it’s hardly a blip. Hang the flag of attempted coup around their necks and charge them with criminal acts. The law is a poor instrument for these things, but the alternative is Mao’s gun barrel.
I see the Trumps are backpedaling from violence, which is good and cowardly of them. The electorate should never be allowed to forget this, as long as any of the insurgents are still in politics.
My bet here is that Pence and McConnel throw Trump under the bus with a 25thA take-out then Pence pardons him and he crawls off to die like a wounded animal. That sets Pence up to pretend to be the “good guy” in 2024 and he completes the political destruction of the republican party. Of course some of that is wishful thinking.
I see the MD and Viriginia national guard are mobilized and moving in. The insurgents can see what it’s like to stare up the barrel of a .50m-2. Its disquieting, and the one time I did that it was friendly and not loaded. But still, ugly.
Mano:
I have a suggestion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kcOpyM9cBg&t=20
😉
Yes, the situation has changed dramatically in the last several hours.
Ivanka urges ‘patriots’ storming Capitol to ‘stop immediately’ in now-deleted tweet
She lost a narrow race for governor of Georgia to Brian Kemp in 2018
She did not lose. 120,000 votes were suppressed, at least. Kemp stole the election.
Rep. Ilhan Omar is drawing up articles of impeachment
I hope that I, an old white guy, can express my total admiration and gratitude here to Stacey Abrams without getting slaughtered. Hers is a rare combination of grit, creativity, persistence and intelligence. What she has done to obtain electoral victories for Biden and the two senators is a story for the ages. I hope she is able to continue this work in whatever way works best for all of us.
Dem control of the WH and Congress is absolutely essential to try to dig out of the massive hole we are in. Ms. Abrams deserves one hell of a lot of credit.
Joel Grant, as another old white guy, I completely agree.
Joel and Jörg , same here. But why would anyone take you to task for saying so? There’s no reason to expect slaughter for what you’ve written. Quite the contrary!
By the way, Mano, you still have Raffensperger’s name wrong by one letter. (Sorry! It’s really not a big deal, but as someone whose name is difficult for people to spell, I’m a bit sensitive to that sort of thing.)
#17 DonDueed
I was slaughtered on Twitter last night (and the mentions are still coming in) because I am a white guy and I praised Tracey Abrams. I did so in the context of replying to someone who had tweeted (roughly) ‘White people need to talk about Tracey Abrams without sounding like the dad on ‘Get Out’.
I had no idea what that meant, not having seen the movie, so I praised Tracey Abrams (keeping in mind that last night was the night of her epoch triumph and not just a random observation) and asked if that was how the dad in the movie talked.
Well! That dad in the movie apparently pretended to be pro-Obama but turned out to be a violent racist. Therefore, my praise of a PoC made me similar to a violent racist. Also, it is patronizing for me to praise Tracey. And so on.
I suspect that I agree politically far more than I disagree with the people who were piling on but we are on different cultural/educational (many of the attackers are academics) wavelengths.
And yet I stand by my praise of Tracey Abrams, thug that I am.
DonDueed @#16,
I don’t know what my mental block is about this guy’s name. I apologize to him and you and all the readers for my inexplicable inability to get his name right!
I have gone back and corrected it everywhere (I hope).
#19, You probably forgot to append a sentence confessing your sin of whiteness and acknowledging your lifelong commitment to antiracism. Piling on violators is how the woke burnish their credentials. It’s madness 😁😁.
There were 3 races on the GA runoff ballot. The two senate races we all know and the public service commission race. The Republican won the service commission race with more votes than Purdue and Loeffler. I leave it up to you to make your own conclusions about that.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsav.com/news/your-local-election-hq/results-us-senate-ga-public-service-commission-runoff-elections/amp/