Could Georgia be the Birthplace of GOP 2.0?
By: Kevin Donovan
Tags: Alternate Reality, GOP, Trump, Georgia Runoff, Republican Party

Right now, Georgia is on everybody’s mind, with a runoff to decide the final two seats in the Senate. While one political party is in the process of lighting itself on fire, it is tempting for those of us from the other party to offer a can of gasoline by joining democracy-deniers in discouraging Republicans from voting. This would be a dirty trick right out of the Roger Stone voter suppression playbook and exactly what so many Republicans would do if the roles were reversed, but for those of us who still do believe in Democracy — including the few principled Republicans who have declined another hit from America’s crack pipe — we all want Democracy to work, regardless of the outcome, and most importantly, for the good of America’s future.

Sadly, the influential core of the Republican Party is coming to the slow realization that the only version of democracy acceptable to them is one in which they always win — a reveal of their real preference for themselves as a monarchal authoritarian ruling class. We should recognize that, left to their own devices, and there are many devices, we would lose our democracy. The toolbox is expanding — it now includes various forms of voter suppression, gerrymandering, voter roll purges, pre-election fraud accusations, election day fraud accusations, post-election fraud accusations, election official tampering, election official death threats, and their current lawsuits-a-palooza tour of swing states. And most anti-democracy Republicans are well aware that overthrowing democracy doesn’t require actual proof of fraud; they need only create enough doubt in an election to erode the people’s confidence in it. Like a bank — a similar institution built upon trust and collective investment — if those of bad faith create enough doubt around its viability, there will be a run on the bank and it will fail.

As we witness the late-stage effects of alternate-reality-substance-abuse, we can’t help but be shocked. The Republican effort to undermine the confidence of voters in Georgia is now undermining the confidence of their own Republican voters. This has put the Senate Republican candidates David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in the absurd position of trying to woo many voters who no longer believe in voting.

This is your Republican Party on drugs.

For Democrats, as with principled Republicans, we are hopeful that the bottom is coming — an AA-like moment that is the step one prerequisite toward some version of a recovery. It will require a flailing and flaming crash of the party in Georgia — the only sufficient shock to the system that will fully purge the toxins and allow the vestiges of the once Grand Old Party to begin anew. That means an irrefutable democratic win of both Senate seats in the runoff. Anything other than that will only defer the rehabilitation, enabling the party to rationalize continued hits off the Trump crack pipe and future damaging battles between competing realities that crush all hopes for future bipartisan progress.

The majority of Americans, made up mostly of Democrats and a gaggle of estranged Republicans, believe in a good faith competition of ideas rather than realities. In the context of governing, there still exists a shared faith in pragmatism and the potential for the best approaches to emerge victorious. Principled Democrats recognize the necessity of two strong parties to deliver shared success, but this is dependent on having a shared reality. As long as a critical mass of one of our parties is immersed in a reality that believes things like Hugo Chavez (who died in 2013) is fostering massive voter fraud, constructive cross-party dialogue can never happen. There is only one cure, and it’s as rough as any withdrawal from addiction: Republicans must leave their alternate reality behind, cold turkey, if we are to have any hope for meaningful progress.

In that sense, Georgia is a microcosm of the country — the frontlines of the battle between realities — and because it is, it can also be where the rehab begins, as it was when Atlanta began its rise from the ashes of the Civil War and ultimately led the way on civil rights. This was once a joint effort between Republicans and Democrats, and it can be again.

A new post-pandemic Republican party — a GOP 2.0 — would be grounded in the realities of a principled conservativism rather than the emotions of grievance and identity. Such an approach would engage a larger share of people of all races and at any economic level by offering them an alternative path to prosperity that competes with progressive ideology in the realm of a common reality. This would be a strategy of inspiration over incitement — of defining the party based on what it is for versus who it is against. It sounds simple and universally appealing, but as we are seeing, grievance is an overwhelming motivating force.

There is some hard work ahead, but harsh realities reveal character, something that was clearly on display in the recent testament from Republican election official Gabriel Sterling, a man who has essentially put his life on the line for democracy. But if GOP 2.0 is to emerge from the wreckage, many more are going to have to step forward and be prepared to weather the attacks of Trump and his followers.

Their moment is coming.

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