“Georgia, Georgia / All day long / Just a sweet old song / Keep Georgia in my mind.” Like in the famous song Georgia on my mind (Georgia in My Mind) Written by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell in 1930, popularized by Ray Charles and adopted as an anthem by the Southern state, Georgia has been taking over America’s political spirit for weeks. After the November 3 elections, the national machines of the two parties moved to this state, where on January 5 voters will decide who has the majority in the Senate. The polls opened for early elections this week, and the polls draw two very tight races on a crucial day for the country’s immediate political future. The fact that Republican leaders were so opposed to recognizing Joe Biden’s victory. The subtext of the Capitol’s negotiations on the new economic bailout package. Everything in Washington today has background music, consisting of the following elements:
The letter. Each state of the Union has two seats in the Upper House of the Capitol, and in the November elections, Georgia was the only one in which voters had to choose, not just one of them (normally the respective six-year terms have expired in a staggered way), but for the two senators who will represent the territory in Washington. First, because the current senator finished his term of office; another, because of the legislature’s withdrawal from its midst, for health reasons, late last year. Since none of the candidates received 50% of the vote on Nov. 3, Georgia electoral law requires that a second round be held between the two most voted candidates for each of the two seats involved. This will take place on January 5th. Republicans, who now hold a majority in the Senate (52 out of 100), won 50 seats in the November election; Democrats 48. For this reason, if the Democrats win the two seats in Georgia, there would be a tie, and the constitution gives the country’s vice president, in this case the current vice president-elect Kamala Harris, a Democrat. , the tiebreaker. . In the US presidential system, a government’s ability to maneuver largely depends on whether its party controls the two houses of Congress, the body that makes laws, confirms appointments of judges and senior officials, and approves expenditures. federal. In a country hit by crisis, facing immense challenges, and with a president who has proposed not running for a second term, what happens in Georgia on Jan. 5 will largely extend the scope of Joe’s project. Mark Biden.
The melody. If the song’s lyrics are powerful, the music around it is no less as both sides have turned Georgia into the rehearsal space where it is decided what US politics will sound like after Trump. Republicans echo the music the now outgoing president played in November: that the Democrats are radical socialists who, if they control both Congress and the White House, will radically change the United States. There are times when the whole country didn’t dance to that tune, and neither did Georgia, wherever Trump lost. Then why reinterpret? This is one of the great paradoxes of the November election: That music didn’t work for Trump, his composer, but it did work at the bottom of the ballot, where congressmen voted. That is, in Georgia, the Republican Party is rehearsing Trump’s music, but without Trump, without his toxic baggage, without trying his record in the White House. The Democrats, for their part, also rehearse how their music sounds without the antagonist. They are preparing to test whether the voters who opened the doors to the White House just wanted to get rid of Trump, or whether they support the reformist agenda the party craves.
The Republican Duet. The conservative votes are cast by Senator David Perdue, 71, a classic moderate Republican and tax allergy who has struggled to follow Trump’s baton, and successful businesswoman Kelly Loeffler, with a billionaire husband, couché flesh. , which the governor of Georgia elected to occupy the Republican seat vacated at the end of the year, in a risky move aimed at losing the vote in suburban Atlanta, the state capital, an exodus led by moderate women. But the Governor and Loeffler picked a bad time to embark on a conventional Republican political career, and the Senator has become a radical Trumpist, defined in campaign ads as “ more conservative than Attila the Hun. ” Perdue, for his part, knows he needs to mobilize the Trumpist base, but he also knows that he beat his rival by one point in November despite losing the president, so there are those who voted for him and Biden. Voters who don’t support Trump’s ways, but neither do the Democratic agenda. Knowing that they need the president’s support to mobilize their supporters, neither Perdue nor Loeffler have yet recognized Biden’s victory.
The Democratic Duet. The Democrat competing for Perdue’s seat is Jon Ossof, 33, a documentary maker. He starred in a laudable run to Congress in 2017, which he ultimately lost. He never held any public office. A pragmatic Democrat, he is trying to convince Georgia that change doesn’t end with Biden’s election, but that it needs a legislature that can help him get what he stands for. But it’s Loeffler’s rival that’s gotten a lot of attention. This is the Reverend Raphael Warnock, nothing short of pastor of the mythical Atlanta church from which Martin Luther King preached. If he wins, Warnock will become the first African-American senator in Georgia’s history. Republicans have made him their villain not only because his fiery sermons are an inexhaustible source of fuel for the bonfire of radicalism where they want to burn their rivals, but because they see a serious threat to the pastor’s ability to maintain the democratic base. mobilize. Warnock, like few others, embodies the clash between the old and the new south, called to be the key to the country’s political future. He, for his part, is essentially committed to offering a friendly image and petting puppies (literally) in his campaign ads.
The soloist. Reports to the polls, already almost exclusively adhering to a fantasy, if there is a solo voice, star tenor, and sotto voice in this song, it will inevitably be Donald Trump’s. Since the election in November, the president has focused on his own struggle, the unusual, chimerical and already painful struggle to reverse an election result he calls fraudulent. And Georgia, one of the states where Trump lost by a narrow margin, was one of the focal points of his attacks. It has forced state taxpayers to pay up to three times the votes. He speaks of massive fraud in the state and has attacked the Republican authorities in Georgia, including the governor himself. Even according to Politico’s information, most of the donations his campaign is raising for Georgia’s second round will fund his crusade to expose the fanciful national election fraud. All of this puts Perdue and Loeffler in an uncomfortable situation. Both candidates know they need to mobilize Trump’s ranks to win, but the president’s behavior hasn’t helped them much. Blaming massive fraud while asking for a vote is a bold strategy. At meetings, Trump is committed to singing his own song. In a recent one, the crowd even silenced the two candidates with a shout of “Fight for Trump.” The same president they are trying to imitate is the one who fakes their instruments. Quite a metaphor for what is happening in the Republican Party today.
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