Another Boring Day in America
On a blue whispy-skied day, one needs a little over an hour to drive from Macon, GA to the parking lot of the State Capitol. I traversed this stretch of scenic highway with my dear friend and photography guru to see how people would react to the results of the much anticipated U.S. Senate election run-offs.
Georgia had just elected its first black senator, Raphael Warnock, and there were some angry folk who weren’t gonna lay down and take it. You see, historically, a portion of Georgia’s white people have done everything in their power to prevent the state from electing black senators. Even going so far as to write into their state constitution the rules regarding run-off elections.
What’s racist about run-off elections you may ask? Well — What’s not racist about historic Georgia legislative decisions?— might be a better question. Before Georgia had run-off elections it had an electoral college-style system of voting. However, in 1962 Georgia Judge Griffen Bell ruled that the system was unfair, and a new system would need to be developed under the principles of ‘one person-one vote’.
I’ll let that sink in for a minute, the fact that the US presidential election still uses a similar style of voting to one that Georgia, in 1962, decided was too unjust to continue implementing.
I’m sorry, I still didn’t answer the question. Why are run-off elections racist? What’s wrong with wanting whoever is elected to represent the state to receive more than half the votes? The first clue you’ll come across is the list of the other US states that currently have run-off election rules in their state constitutions. Better yet, a map:
Not exactly a group of states known for racial inclusivity, right? To clarify, South Dakota only triggers a run-off if no candidate gets more than 35% of the total vote rather than the customary 50%, and Vermont only triggers a run-off election if the leading candidates tie.
The main fear that led to the run-off system adoption was the idea that white people have a plurality of political beliefs. So if the white vote was split, black people could vote in a ‘bloc’ and their candidate would need minimal white votes to win. So Georgia’s electoral run-off system was put in place to ensure white people would likely be given the option to elect a white man, regardless of their political leanings, if their prefered cadidate wasn’t initially selected.
Which is exactly what happened. In Georgia election history the Justice Department cites, “at least 35 black candidates won the most votes in their initial primaries, but then lost in runoffs as voters coalesced around a white opponent.”
There are of course benefits to run-off systems. They can make it harder for extremists to gain power in an election with a multitude of candidates since they eventually need to appeal to a large portion of society, rather than merely their base. But there is little doubt that Georgia’s run-off system was established with racist intentions. Now that system has cost the Republican party the Senate. Without it, David Purdue — shown here flashing a variation of the white power hand signal used by a far-right militia group called the III% — would have been re-elected to his Senate seat.
On January 6th, as the final ballots were being counted, the vast majority of the state was feeling completely exhausted. They had suffered 2 months of national focus and over $800 million dollars had been spent trying to convince them to vote for people they were most likely already voting for since day 1.
All the people I met had stacks of mail and postcards, as well as an inbox full of text messages reminding them to vote, and for whom. Even hours after the polls closed on the 5th, ads for both sides were still running on TV. Election fatigue had set in hard for almost everyone.
I was not expecting a big crowd at the Capitol, and when I arrived to find only one flagged-out truck my suspicions were confirmed. Like a total rookie, I jumped the gun and posted to Twitter about it before realizing the crowd was on the other side of the building. This guy was just guarding the parking lot.
Due to current construction happening on the premises, the only suitable place to stand was on the sidewalk across the street, pressed up against a building. At most, 100 Trump supporters stood there facing the golden-dome. The conversations overheard reflected a group of people who had been told to show up to fight, and then told nothing else. “This is boring, what are we supposed to do now, try to go in there?” One American flag-draped lady said to another.
The crowd had heeded the call to show up, ready to fight back against their enemies. The only problem was their enemies didn’t get the memo, or more likely, got the memo and didn’t care. There were no counter-protesters, no deep-state agents, not even a doctor telling them to wear masks. Just them and increasingly bored journalists. It seemed like the plans for the day, if there were any, had failed to materialize.
But the best-laid plans don’t get shared with the lowly troops, only the officers know what will happen. Among the crowd were two high-ranking members of the Georgia far right: Chester Doles — a former KKK leader, and Chris Hill — AKA General Bloodagent (no joke) the leader of Georgia’s III% Security Force militia.
All of a sudden, there was movement. Chester Doles left the crowd and began walking to the West, escorted by Chris Hill, and several other armed militia members. Nobody knew what was about to take place, but the well-oiled gears of a star-spangled strategic episode had begun to slowly turn. Some protestors blindly followed them, asking around if anyone knew where they were going. While others stayed back to live with their confusion or lack of courage.
Chester was looking around for a way into the building. After not finding one immediately, he consulted a nearby police officer who kindly told him which way he needed to go in order to most easily gain access to the Capitol.
Their masterplan was cunning and fierce. They would flash the secret hand signal to any guards once they got to the doors and be granted entrance. Once inside, they would signal to the crowd to advance on the perimeter. The protestors out front would rush from all angles, quickly forcing the handful of outnumbered police to spread themselves thin and eventually be overrun as the legions of patriots entered the historic building.
Flash bangs and tear gas would be depolyed in every direction causing fear and chaos. Duffle bags of gas masks would be passed out to allow for more comfortable rampaging. Chris’s militiamen would use their assault rifles and tactical gear to neutralize any non-compliant security inside the building. The Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensberger, would be found and forced to repent for his sins after signing documents certifying that Trump had won Georgia’s presidential electors, and Purdue & Loeffler had won the Senate seats.
As police helicopters circled the sky and the National Guard surrounded the building, they would work their way onto the roof. From there the signal would be given, a giant fireworks display would paint an American flag in the sky and the majority of the armed forces in the vicinity would turn and show their support as their surprised and outnumbered ex-comrades laid down their arms. Chants of “USA, USA, USA” would echo over the cityscape and the couptastic revolution would be successfully complete.
Nah, Chester just had a letter of grievances he wanted to hand to Mr. Raffensberger. Alas, he wasn’t allowed to. So he just gave it to some guy he didn’t know, who told him it would be passed it along.
The letter was basically one horribly-formated page of recycled election fraud complaints. Followed by a half-page of him saying that he stopped being a racist klansman five years ago but that black guy who just got elected senator is an “ANTIFA Terrorist”. Adding at the end a message to all the “ANTIFA - BLM - Socialist - Communist - Marxist - DEMOCRATS…Here’s your little New Years Present…Go to Hell.”
Afterward, he exited the building, and together with the III% militia walked to their cars and went home. What was hyped as a day to meet at the State Capitol to ‘STOP THE STEAL’ and take their country back, fizzled into an unwanted gift of poor grammar and insults. January 6th will no doubt fade into the many banal pages of boring American history…unless something else happened that I haven’t heard about.
