Forgive the mixing of musical metaphors, but tonight, Georgia is on everyone’s mind. 

The southern state that is home to 39th president Jimmy Carter and was narrowly won by Joe Biden in November’s presidential election – the first time a Democrat had taken the state since Bill Clinton in 1992 – is currently the centre of America’s political universe ahead of two much-anticipated run-off elections that will determine control of the incoming Senate. 

Democrats need to win both of the seats to tie the upper chamber and allow Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris to become the casting vote. If they lose either, the Republicans retain control and enacting any of the new administration’s agenda becomes significantly more difficult. 

Democratic party organisers have been encouraged by early turnout numbers, building on the extensive voter registration efforts by Stacey Abrams ahead of November, but they remain worried by the Republicans’ record-breaking financial resources.  With polls showing the races pretty much neck-and-neck, it will likely all come down to turnout on the day, normally a situation where Republicans are stronger. 

But this election, of course, is anything but normal.

Republicans have risked suppressing their own support due to the widespread allegations by the president and others that the November vote had been “rigged”. The mixed messaging – trying to say that the election was somehow fraudulent only where it applied to President Trump – may have undermined faith in the electoral process among some GOP voters. It also hasn’t helped that lawyers acting on behalf of President Trump had turned their fire on the Republican candidates, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, for not advocating for him strongly enough. 

So the election was already going to be critical. This past weekend it turned into an even more high-stakes political circus, when the Washington Post published an audio recording of a call on Saturday between President Trump and the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican and the state’s top election official, in which the President continued his efforts to overturn Biden’s victory.

Even Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein called the tape “the ultimate smoking gun.”

Democrats have asked the FBI to open a probe into the legality of the call, but the President’s hardline supporters have predictably rallied round while Trump himself seems to be dealing exclusively in conspiracy theories, with little regard now for anything other than annulling November’s outcome.

Peter Baker writes at the New York Times that Trump’s behavior has caused “the most serious stress test of American democracy in generations, led not by outside revolutionaries intent on bringing down the system but by the very leader charged with defending it.”

Trump is due to hold a rally in Georgia late on Monday evening. He was reported to be considering canceling the trip after the Raffensperger call became public, but will now apparently again use the appearance to air his personal grievances.

Because that always works.

In the Senate and in the streets 

Whatever the outcome in Georgia, potentially more worrying events – constitutionally and for public order – could unfold in Washington DC on Wednesday, when Congress assembles to certify the state-by-state results of the presidential election and confirm each state’s participation in the Electoral College.

More than 100 House members and a dozen Senators have said they will object to the confirmation of Biden’s victory, potentially disrupting the final formal chapter in the transition of power, in pursuit of recognition in the form of some kind of ten-day commission to investigate whatever they say they’re angry about.

Even Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell had appealed to his fellow Republicans not to disrupt the process but the division within his party is – not for the first time – more about posturing than principle.

This pantomime is primarily about some potential 2024 presidential candidates seeking to capitalize on the anger Trump has instilled in his base and positioning themselves for the Republican primary campaign that will effectively start after the midterms in November 2022.  Unlikely as it sounds looking at the party tonight, technically the GOP can go into those midterms from a position of strength; one more reason why the run-offs in Georgia are so important.

But while any demonstration on the Senate floor should prove at worst to be a delay in the certification process, on the streets outside, there is expected to be an altogether more disruptive demonstration, as some of Trump’s more testosterone-obsessed supporters are set to gather for a day of protests after the president tweeted “Be there, will be wild.”

As for Trump himself and his own obsession with reversing the election result, there was a quite remarkable development today when in a scathing letter the ten living former US Defense Secretaries – including Iraq War stalwarts Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, as well as Trump’s own office-holders James Mattis and Mark Esper – warned against using the military to intervene in any domestic political dispute. 

“Efforts to involve the US armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory. Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.”

Meanwhile overseas, ominously, tensions remain high in the Persian Gulf, with Iran marking the one-year anniversary of the Trump-ordered assassination of Iranian General Qasem Sulemaini.

In these chaotic, preposterous and frankly potentially dangerous final days, two weeks feels like a lifetime. But already there is talk that Trump will fly to his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland ahead of Biden’s inauguration on January 20, from where he might formally launch his campaign for 2024 – or perhaps merely tease the possibility due to potentially restrictive rules on political fundraising.

Of course, plenty can change by then, but since he hasn’t paid much attention to rules up to now, you can probably bet that Trump will do whatever keeps him unrestrained, relevant, and, above all, solvent.

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See Also:

Biden – Finally – Wins Presidency

Democrats Take A Look In The Mirror

Going To Church With The Carters

Trump’s Iran Move Upends The Chess Board


Also published on Medium.