Georgia on My Mind: Should I Feel Sorry for Herschel Walker?
Herschel Walker lost in a runoff election for US Senate where the deck was stacked to ensure GOP dominance at the ballot box. Every significant statewide office in the Peach State elected Republicans.
Voters in major metropolitan areas (more likely to be Black and Democrats) stood in line for hours because the number of polling places was diminished, while suburban voters cruised through in no time at all.
Turn out for the recall election was a half million less people than in last month’s general election. Republicans are supposed to win runoff races in purple states where less people vote.
Walker was a low-quality candidate. Unintelligible policy pronouncements and bizarre non sequiturs about bulls and werewolves served to make the case that he was not capable of handling the job of U.S. senator.
His primary asset as a candidate was a blessing from ex-president Donald Trump. During the waning days of his campaign, Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsay Graham were brought on as minders with the hope of keeping the candidate focused and preventing further gaffs.
Walker lied about just about everything having to do with his qualifications for holding office, repeatedly misrepresenting his academic credentials, his business record, and involvement in law enforcement.
A man running on an God fearing anti-abortion platform was exposed for paying for at least one abortion (possibly two), and being a violent creep.
The victorious Democrat, Rev. Raphael Warnock, ran on what he’s done and could do for the state. Herschel Walker ran on being a celebrity.
As was true with the other Trump-blessed celebrity running for the Senate (Dr. Oz), Walker actually lived in another state.
His candidacy would have been a non-starter in a world where both political parties were competing on policy and effective governance. Instead, we have one party defined by its blind loyalty to an overstuffed guy posing as being wealthy and relying on angertainment to rally voters.
As easy as it is to trash-talk Walker, I have some sympathy for him. My bet would be that he’s yet another victim of a sport known for beating the brains out of its players. I doubt that he’s self-aware enough to realize that he was picked as a candidate despite his ignorance and because of the racism of his benefactors.
He was/is an embarrassment to Black people; a stick in the eye wielded by a post-plantation patriarchy intent on disruption and proud of his incompetence.
Here’s Danté Stewart in the New York Times:
The race and runoff are reflections of who white people believe is best for Black people and the nation. Mr. Walker is a very visible and violent symbol of just how far many white people in America will go to preserve a dying world of whiteness they refuse to let go of.
What a sad thing it is to watch a man’s and a people’s desire to destroy even themselves in an attempt to control what America is, means and can become. It is not just white supremacy. It is not just white hatred. It is white ingratitude.
White ingratitude is bent on breaking people’s hearts. It is white ingratitude that refuses to appreciate what Senator Warnock means to Georgia and this country and forces him to prove himself once again. It is white ingratitude that desires the stereotype of the ignorant charismatic Black athlete. It is white ingratitude that disrespects and disregards the Black tradition of faith that wants to both heal the soul and save society. It is white ingratitude that refuses to acknowledge just how deeply racist a vote for Mr. Walker actually is. White ingratitude is not just about open hatred and violence; it is also the everyday ways many white people make life so much harder for those who don’t look like them.
At the Atlantic Tom Nichols, who's spent much of his life looking things from the right side of the aisle, commented on what Walker’s candidacy symbolized to the contemporary political process:
Think of how much our civic health has declined in general. Only 35 years ago, during the long-ago Camelot of the late 1980s, Gary Hart had to pull out of the Democratic primaries for getting caught with a pretty lady on a boat named “Monkey Business,” and the televangelist Jimmy Swaggart stood with tears streaming down his face because he’d been caught with a prostitute in a Louisiana motel. In 1995, Senator Bob Packwood (again, more tears) resigned in the aftermath of revelations of sexual misconduct just before being expelled from the Senate.
The Republicans were once an uptight and censorious party—something I rather liked about them, to be honest—and they are now a party where literally nothing is a disqualification for office. There is only one cardinal rule: Do not lose. The will to power, the urge to defeat the enemy, the insistence that the libs must be owned—this resentment and spite fuels everything. And worst of all, we’ve gotten used to it. I’m not sure who said it first, but the Doobie Brothers said it again in the title of their 1974 album: What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits.
The one cardinal rule of contemporary Trumpism is to never lose, and if you do, distract and/or change public perception.
Walker’s loss in Georgia has enabled those in the GOP who see a future without Dear Leader. They are already fighting among themselves as manifested by the Republican rumble in progress of Capitol Hill leadership.
Their leading candidate for president in 2024 is badly wounded, but not dead. And that makes him all the more dangerous and more inclined to incite nihilist anarchy. Motivated by lies and distortions, his more radical followers are prepared to wreak mayhem within the party, even as they dial up rhetoric aimed at those they believe to be threats to the MAGA dream.
Meanwhile, Herschel Walker’s got some life decisions to make. I hope he finds a better crowd to hang out with.
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com