Georgia and Character

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“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” — The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28, 1963.

Over half a century ago, MLK spoke those words before a huge crowd in our nation’s capital. That was a different time, and we were a different nation.

Then we were an optimistic, forward-looking bunch. Then JFK was president and very much alive. So was his brother RFK. We all sought, with JFK, to “ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

Now we have just voted out our most selfish president ever. We did so by the very same electoral-college margin that had elected him four years ago, which he had called a “landslide.” The popular-vote margin was over seven million people, decisive.

Yet both sides of MLK’s optimistic prophecy are still on the line. We all know that George Floyd’s police-murder by knee would never have happened to a white man. And the clear majority of us who voted Trump out know that the content of his character was the most dismal of any president in our history.

Now we await a similar electoral verdict in Georgia, in two days.

What do we know about the content of Kelly Loeffler’s and David Purdue’s character? Has either sponsored any legislation to improve the lives of workers, let alone people suffering in the pandemic? Not that I know. The single most prominent fact about them is that both traded stock on information about the pandemic that they had as sitting senators. The second is that they both base their candidacies on blind loyalty to a defeated Trump.

Loeffler has also become the Queen of Name Calling. In a single debate, she called her opponent “radical socialist Warnock” thirteen times. Does this show character? Or does it reveal a rich, self-obsessed, entitled white woman—a Betsy DeVos on steroids?

Maybe what Purdue and Loeffler did with their stock portfolios isn’t technically illegal. Maybe they didn’t trade on inside corporate information. Instead, they traded on inside information about the greatest threat to our nation’s well-being in a century. Loeffler apparently sold on information in a classified briefing. Purdue traded on information on how bad the pandemic might get, while keeping a sunny public face. This is character?

A lot of religious people will help decide which way our Senate goes. Maybe thinking about Jesus might help them decide.

Would Jesus have put his knee on George Floyd’s neck? Would he have kept desperate immigrant children in cages? Did he call his detractors “radical socialist liberals”? Or did he turn the other cheek? Most of all, would Jesus, after hearing secretly of a great plague to come, have rushed out to trade stock?

Half a century ago, three assassinations destroyed our hope and the “content of our character” as a nation. They replaced selfless patriotism with the selfish portfolio clutching and Dow-worshipping of today. Talk about worshipping Mammon!

Loeffler and Purdue are the heirs of those assassinations. In contrast, the Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff carry the torch that JFK and MLK lit way back in the 1960s.

The difference in goals and character could not be starker, as we wait to see what Georgia will do. If Georgians just think about character and Jesus, surely their verdict will help put us back on track.

Endnote: I wrote and posted what’s above before reading today’s in-depth coverage of the Reverend Warnock and the City of Atlanta in the New York Times. Both stories confirmed my view that Georgia could lead a national political renaissance this year. Let’s hope.

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