Posted on May 25, 2022

Georgia Dons Black and Blue

Chris Roberts, American Renaissance, May 25, 2022

Blue Looks Good on You (Keith P. Rein)

Credit Image: Keith P. Rein

Until last night, blacks in primary elections in both parties had done poorly this year, either losing to more moderate white candidates or winning nominations they are almost certain to lose in the general election. Georgia has upended the trend.

Redistricting changed the state’s congressional districts considerably. The sixth and seventh had both been swing districts until this year, when the sixth became solidly Republican and the seventh solidly Democrat. Because of this, the Democrat incumbent of the now-Republican sixth decided to challenge the Democrat incumbent of the seventh. The two women are at opposite poles of their party. In the sixth was Lucy McBath, black, whose main focus is limiting gun rights. In the seventh was Carolyn Bourdeaux, white, and a moderate. Rep. Bourdeaux is a member of both The Blue Dog Coalition of conservative Democrats and The Problem Solvers, a bipartisan coalition “committed to finding common ground on many of the key issues facing the nation.” Rep. McBath is a not a member of either; she’s in the Congressional Black Caucus.

Last night, the two women faced off and black trounced white 63 percent to 31 percent. This nearly guarantees that Miss McBath will stay in Congress.

Lucy McBath Rally For Legislation On Gun Background Checks

Representative Lucy McBath (D-GA) speaking at an event in front of the Capitol to urge the passage of H.R. 8 universal (gun ownership) background checks legislation on June 20, 2019. (Credit Image: © Michael Brochstein / ZUMA Wire)

Meanwhile, Georgia Republicans chose Herschel Walker, a black athlete, to run against the radical black Democrat incumbent Raphael Warnock in November. Like many black Republicans, Mr. Walker appears to be interested in politics almost as a novelty.

Mr. Walker was married to a white woman, Cindy Grossman, for nearly two decades. After she divorced him, Miss Grossman accused him of “physically abusive and extremely threatening behavior.” She says he once pointing a pistol at her head and said, “I’m going to blow your f’ing brains out.” Four years after their divorce, she got a restraining order against him. The Associated Press reported:

Grossman told the court she got calls during that period from her sister and father, both of whom had been contacted by Walker. He told family members that he would kill her and her new boyfriend, according to Maria Tsettos, Cindy Grossman’s sister.

In an affidavit, Tsettos claimed Walker once called looking for his ex-wife while she was out with her boyfriend. . . . In Tsettos’ recollection, Walker “stated unequivocally that he was going to shoot my sister Cindy and her boyfriend in the head.”

On another occasion, Tsettos said she talked to Walker “at length” after he’d reached out to her online. He “expressed to me that he was frustrated with (Cindy) and that he felt like he had ‘had enough’ and that he wanted to ‘blow their f—— heads off’”. . . .

The judge granted the restraining order and “also barred Walker from possessing guns for a period of time.”

DONALD TRUMP AND HERSCHEL WALKER

Sept. 22, 1983 – Donald Trump and Herschel Walker (Credit Image: © James Colburn / ZUMA Wire)

Mr. Walker faced no serious challengers in the primary, and between his celebrity status (he won the Heisman Trophy in 1982) and Donald Trump’s backing, cruised to victory with 68 percent of the vote. Republicans may have liked his comments on race and racism. In 2020, Mr. Walker said, “It hurts my soul to hear the terrible names that people call Donald [Trump]. The worst one is ‘racist.’ I take it as a personal insult that people would think I would have a 37-year friendship with a racist.” More recently, he expressed opposition to reparations, saying, “We use black power to create white guilt. My approach is biblical: how can I ask my Heavenly Father to forgive me if I can’t forgive my brother?” He sees the US as wonderful polyglot: “America is the greatest country in the world for me, a melting pot of a lot of great races, a lot of great minds that have come together with different ideas to make Americans the greatest country on Earth.”

Finally, the gubernatorial race will be a rematch of 2018. Republican incumbent Brian Kemp easily fended off former Senator David Perdue and the Democrat nomination of Stacey Abrams was a foregone conclusion. The 2018 election was close, and the rematch could be, too. Gov. Kemp now has the advantage of incumbency and 2022 should be a good year for the GOP, but in the last four years, Georgia has become less white, trended more Democrat, and Miss Abrams has raised her profile.

Stacey Abrams for Governor 2022

March 14, 2022: Democratic candidate for Georgia Governor Stacey Abrams campaigns in Atlanta. Abrams was the first black woman to become the gubernatorial nominee for a major party in the United States. She is running for governor, setting up a rematch with Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp in what could become one of the most closely watched races in the country. (Credit Image: © Robin Rayne / ZUMA Press Wire)

These races are another lesson in demographics. When I was growing up, everyone told me that (aside from certain rural Western states) the Deep South was the most Republican part of the country, and that the further from the Deep South you were, the weaker the Republican Party became. Adults informed me that this was all a legacy of the Civil War. Georgia shows this is no longer true. It is now a swing state, more or less, unlike the rest of the Deep South: Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Why is that, when all five are among the blackest states in the country?

    State Percent Black    National Rank   
Mississippi

36.6

1

Louisiana

31.4

2

Georgia

31.0

3

Alabama

25.8

5

South Carolina

25.0

6

It’s because only Georgia has significant populations of people who are neither white nor black. In the other four Deep South states, the non-black citizens are almost all white, leading to the usual racial polarization in which whites vote as a bloc and keep the state Republican. Here are the five states’ white populations:

    State Percent White   
Mississippi

55.4

Louisiana

55.8

Georgia

50.1

Alabama

65.3

South Carolina

62.1

The slim white majority in Georgia makes it hard for Republicans to win. Meanwhile, historically less conservative states that have kept more comfortable white majorities are now more solidly red, such as Arkansas (68.5 percent white, 15.1 percent black). Until recently, it was considered a Democrat stronghold. And the state with a racial mix most similar to Georgia is solidly blue: Maryland, which is 47.2 percent white and 29.5 percent black.

All politics is racial, and for Georgia’s whites, that’s bad news.