Like Wyatt Earp after the OK Corral shooting, Donald Trump and his allies rode up for a revenge trip to Georgia.
Unlike Earp and his band, however, Trump did not get his husband or any of his Confederates, and Gov. Brian Kemp and Co. he did not even have to leave the territory.
Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had angered Trump by refusing to cede his delusions about the 2020 election or participating in any legally dubious maneuver to change the outcome in Georgia, and had felt all the fury of the White House and Mar-a. – Lake.
It is not uncommon for politicians to do the right thing and infuriate the most influential figure in their party and the most committed element of their political base and live to explain it. Kemp and Raffensperger have it. Together with former Vice President Mike Pence, whose separation from Trump is increasingly evident, they form a cadre that withstood intense pressure to turn its back on its duty in 2020, showing a backbone and moral integrity. and institutional that will detract from their credit. in history books.
They also point to a future in which the GOP has escaped the cannon of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” obsession box. That day is not here, but Tuesday’s results show that it may not be possible to be far away.
If Trump had been rationally calculating his interests, he would have twice thought about turning his signed project in the 2022 primary season into a challenge for a deep-rooted, politically astute governor.
Instead, he pulled the strings to create a statewide revenge board that challenged everyone, from Kemp to the bottom. Trump wanted to remove state Rep. Vernon Jones from the primaries for governor to give way to his favorite candidate, former Sen. David Perdue. So he persuaded Jones in the 10th District of Congress primaries and then removed one of his former advisers, Patrick Witt, from the Congressional primaries and a primary against the acting insurance commissioner selected by Kemp.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp greets supporters during an election night party after he won the nomination for being the Republican candidate. Nathan Posner / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Brian Kemp had angered Trump by refusing to satisfy his delusions about the 2020 election. Nathan Posner / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The story of the tape is that Perdue got 21.8% of the vote, Jones 21.6% and Witt 16.7%.
To be fair to Witt, he was sent on a particularly naive suicide mission.
As a 32-year-old former Trump adviser working for the president’s legal team that tried to overturn the result in Georgia, Witt was suing John King, a former police chief and commander-in-chief of the National Guard. Georgia is the first Latin. to serve in the state office in Georgia.
(The nearly 22 percent Jones got, by the way, was enough for second place in a crowded field and came in a second round).
Acting Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is grabbing a glass of champagne to toast his wife Tricia after declaring victory. Photo by AP / Ben Gray
Republican primary voters in Georgia were clearly in favor of going beyond an all-consuming approach by 2020 and opposed Trump continuing to make the state his political game.
Trump has catalyzed some healthy and useful changes in the GOP.
The plan is to set for 2020 that Trump has done everything he can to impose on the party.
Orthodoxy about stolen elections forces Republican politicians to say something that is not true and that most know is true; institutionalizes a policy of cynicism and fear: fear of both Trump and his voters; diminishes attention to Joe Biden’s continued failures; and not useful for winning swing voters.
It is possible to read too much about the victories of Kemp and Raffensperger, which would have been difficult to achieve without the advantages of the title and the defective opponents, while Pence will have a lot to overcome if it is presented in 2024.
But by refusing to follow Trump’s rules, they have shown courage that should be encouraging to others in the party. Being an ambitious Republican doesn’t have to mean promoting or accepting falsehoods about the year 2020 for fear of a law enforcement the firepower and writing are not as good as advertised.