Political Rhetoric Trends Violent

Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023

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Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving week. We at Soundings and elsewhere at The Current are grateful for many things and topping the list are you, our readers in Coastal Georgia and elsewhere. That sounds a bit cheesy, we know, but it’s true, and we mean it. Thank you.

This week we look at the toxic — and dangerous — language that’s poised to dominate our politics in the year ahead, some real estate transactions, and in case you missed it, a story by Capitol Beat about the need for at least $1.4 billion in highway improvements in the counties of Chatham, Bryan, Effingham, and Bulloch.

A Thanksgiving political prayer

Here’s an idea for a Thanksgiving prayer: Give thanks to 2023, because when it comes to our political conversation, next year may only get worse — and probably more dangerous.

On the cusp of a presidential election year, including a Republican primary in Georgia in March, the use of toxic political rhetoric to gin up fear and anger — and get people to the polls — is soaring.

After 6^th District U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick was forced to close his local congressional office in Cumming due to what he called “serious threats of violence against his staff,” Coastal Georgia U.S. Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he believed the dangers facing elected officials have escalated. Like McCormick, he also has received death threats, he said.

Carter gave no details about the threats, writes The Current’s Craig Nelson, including when and how they were made. But after declaring it time for Americans to “take a step back” and ask, “Is this really the way we want America to go?” the five-term Congressman, a former pharmacist, traced the death threats to those with mental illnesses who, for one reason or another, aren’t taking medication.

In his interview with The AJC, Carter wasn’t asked whether other factors might also be poisoning political discourse to the extent that death threats against sitting elected officials become normal — in particular, the example-setting role played by incendiary and apocalyptic rhetoric often employed by former President Donald Trump.

Carter also wasn’t asked if he condemned that rhetoric, which recently included a description of his opponents as “vermin” bent on stealing elections and destroying America and the American dream, both through legal and illegal means.

Asked, however, if he would be endorsing the former president for reelection, Carter said he would be deciding that “in the near future.”

Local politics aren’t immune, either.

Days before Savannah’s recent municipal elections, leaflets were circulated in some neighborhoods describing one candidate, without evidence, as a child sex abuser — an allegation that was as physically dangerous to that candidate as it was wrong.

Not all of the campaign mudslinging was deliberately scurrilous or potentially perilous to those targeted. Yet even when it was neither of those things, it could be soul-crushing.

In her closing statement at a candidate forum last month, Alicia Miller Blakely urged voters to return her at-large, post 2 on the Savannah City Council so she could continue her fight against corruption in City Hall.

In her first term, that challenge was more daunting than she expected, she explained:

“You all sent us downtown under that Gold Dome with a butter knife, and they all had AR-15s and M-16s.”

For a city grappling with gun violence, it’s difficult to think of a metaphor more ill-considered and tone-deaf.

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Moving up

It appears that Buddy Carter’s voting address is no longer in Pooler, the home of his former pharmacy business and where he served as mayor from 1996 to 2004.

Real estate records show he paid $3,175,500 for a house on St. Simons Island on July 13. Some two months later, on Sept. 21, he sold his house in Pooler for an estimated $631,700.

Carter often speaks of plans to retire to Coastal Georgia, so his purchase of a home on St. Simons is no surprise. Financially, the property wasn’t out of reach: Carter’s estimated median net worth at the end of 2021 was $32.3 million, according to Open Secrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics.

There’s a twist, though, in the eventually-marching-into-the-sunset retirement scenario.

Georgia lawmakers are scheduled to convene in a special session at the end of this month to debate new voting districts, after a U.S. district judge last month ordered the state to draw a new voting map.

That map must include Black majorities in one additional congressional district, two additional state Senate districts, and five additional state House districts.

Could Carter find himself fighting for a redrawn seat? Does a St. Simons address make it more likely he’ll prevail in any intra-GOP fight? Stay tuned.

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ICYMI

• “GDOT considers $1.4B of highway upgrades for metro Savannah” (Capitol Beat, Nov. 15, 2023) “It’s going to cost at least $1.4 billion – and probably a lot more – in highway improvements in the Savannah region to keep pace with economic growth, an official with the Georgia Department of Transportation said Wednesday. . . . [Deputy planning director Matt] Markham outlined the findings of a study of current conditions and future needs of major highway corridors in four of the region’s counties: Chatham, Bryan, Effingham, and Bulloch.”
• “Potential 2026 GOP rivals are already fighting in Georgia” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Nov. 16, 2023) ‘Of course, nothing is as important as winning in 2024. . . .,’ [Lt. Gov. Burt] Jones said [in a statement referring to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger]. ‘To avoid that, and have safe and secure elections, we need a secretary of state who is interested in showing up to do his job and working alongside the Legislature.’ Raffensperger offered a biting response, with his top deputy, Jordan Fuchs, declaring Jones as ‘exactly what’s wrong with politics.’ ”
• “Lawyer for former elections supervisor says he released videos in Georgia 2020 interference case” (Associated Press, Nov. 15, 2023) “[Brunswick attorney Jonathan] Miller argued that “to hide those proffers that show all the underlying things that went into those pleas, it misleads the public about what’s going on.’”
• “Sports betting best odds for legalizing gambling in Georgia” (Capitol Beat, Nov. 17, 2023) “ ‘Sports betting is something that should be an easy lift,’ said Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who introduced a sports betting bill back in 2020 when he was a member of the state Senate. ‘It’s probably the most popular of the three arenas of gambling we’ve talked about.’”

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