The Georgia GOP has had it up to here with Donald Trump. Not only did he sabotage his own bid for re-election, but he’s now suppressing voter turnout for the special Senate election on January 5th.
Politics
For months, Trump told his MAGA sycophants NOT to vote by mail because (in his alternate universe) mail-in ballots would be rife with fraud. Too bad for Trump his fanatics believed him, prompting those who were unable to vote in-person to simply not vote at all — which cost him the election.
After losing the State of Georgia to Joe Biden and seeing the once-reliable red state turn blue for the first time in decades, Trump convinced himself (in his alternate universe) that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger would cheat for him and miraculously overturn the official Georgia election results in his favor. Too bad for Trump the governor and secretary of state chose honesty and democracy over cheating and did not do ‘The Donald’s’ bidding, prompting him to go on a wild Twitter tirade against each of them.
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“I’m ashamed that I endorsed him.”
President Trump on @FoxNews just now on his support for @GovKemp in 2018, remarks that could dog the governor thru 2022. #gapol pic.twitter.com/aUE685gtfP
— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) November 29, 2020
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“For those wondering, my family voted for him, donated to him, and are now being thrown under the bus by him.” – Brad Raffensperger
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Now, Trump is unwittingly about to undermine the Georgia GOP and the special runoff election that will determine control of the US Senate.
For weeks, Trump has whined that the election was rigged, that dead people voted, that voting machines were tampered with and that the entire voting process is a sham and should be thrown out. Too bad for Trump his MAGA fanatics have been listening and are about to ruin the upcoming race for the Georgia GOP and the Republican Party.
On Saturday, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel had to fight back Trump’s MAGA crowd during a get-out-the-vote appearance in Marietta, GA. Apparently, the crowd bought into Trump’s conspiratorial accusations and shouted to McDaniel that they shouldn’t even bother to vote in the upcoming runoff election because it’s “rigged” and that elections are “already decided.”
One by one, angry Trump supporters yelled at McDaniel that “machines are switching the votes” and that Republicans turned out in such “crazy numbers,” but somehow Joe Biden still defeated Donald Trump.
“Why should we vote in this election when we know it’s already decided?” a Trump supporter shouted.
McDaniel quickly found herself between a rock and a hard place — having to find a way not to piss off Trump by denying the validity of his conspiracy claims, while simultaneously convincing local voters that the election process works and that their votes in the upcoming election will count.
“It’s not decided. This is the key — it’s not decided,” McDaniel told the incensed crowd of Trump supporters. “So if you lose your faith and you don’t vote and people walk away — that will decide it,” she warned.
Raffensperger is “the enemy of the people,” one supporter exclaimed. “Kemp is a crook!” screamed another.
And so, thanks to Donald Trump, the Georgia GOP could be in a heap of trouble. If voters in the state continue to buy into conspiracy claims and don’t turn out to re-elect incumbent Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, the US Senate will turn blue in 2021 with the addition of Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock as 2 new Democratic senators from the State of Georgia.
New York Times: President Trump’s sustained assault on his own party in Georgia, and his repeated claims of election fraud in the state, have intensified worries among Republicans that he could be hurting their ability to win two crucial Senate runoff races next month. The president has continued to claim without evidence that his loss in the new battleground state was fraudulent, directing his ire in particular at Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both conservative Republicans, whom he has accused of not doing enough to help him overturn the result. Over the weekend, he escalated his attacks on Mr. Kemp, saying he was “ashamed” to have endorsed him in 2018, and on Monday he called Mr. Kemp “hapless” as he urged him to “overrule his obstinate Republican Secretary of state.’’ Mr. Trump’s broadsides have quietly rattled some Republicans in the state, who fear that concerns about the… Read more »