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BARROW NEWS-JOURNAL
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
~ Henry Ward Beecher ~
Backlash coming
in U.S. politics
This nation — our nation — is splintered and polarized
more than any time since the upheaval of the Civil
Rights movement in the 1960s. Much of today’s politi
cal turmoil revolves around racial, ethnic and religious
animosities that in some ways, are worse than the
backlash against the Civil Rights movement.
We saw a specific example of that in last year’s
Alabama Senate race which pitted an extremist
Republican, Roy Moore, against a moderate Democrat,
Doug Jones.
Moore was a terrible candi
date even before allegations that
he tried to seduce teenage girls
four decades ago surfaced. That
he was even on the ticket as a
legitimate candidate says a lot
about how far this nation has
lowered its ethical standards.
Jones ultimately won the race in
a stunning upset.
Although a Republican,
Moore’s doomed race wasn’t
about GOP policy concerns like
taxes, defense or trade issues.
The real context of Moore’s can
didacy was that it starkly defined the ugly edges of the
nation’s raging cultural war.
That war is being led as a backlash by mostly older,
white, rural conservatives against what they view as a
globalist, politically-correct and minority-dominated
national agenda.
At the center of that white backlash is what some
characterized in the Moore campaign as the “conser
vative white evangelical” movement.
But I find that movement to be less about evangelical
issues than about “white Christian identity politics,”
especially white nationalistic politics.
Adherents of white Christian identity politics fear how
the nation has changed in their lifetimes and they want
it to go back to an era when Christian whites (mostly
males) dominated the social and political order.
Their goal may be wrong-headed, but they are cor
rect that the nation has undergone a lot of social, eth
nic, racial and religious changes over the last 50 years:
• Demographically the nation is becoming more
diverse with a growing Asian and Hispanic population.
In 1965, whites made up over 80 percent of Americans.
By 2055, whites will be less than 50 percent.
• Socially the role of women in the workforce and
society has changed dramatically over the last 50
years. More women are now the sole or primary bread
winners in households with children. In 1960, just 11
percent of households with children had women as
the sole breadwinners; in 2011, that had grown to 40
percent. And the role of women has changed in other
ways as well, especially in the workplace and in the
larger society.
• In religion, Christians continue to dominate, but that
has fallen rapidly in recent years as non-Christians and
the religiously unaffiliated have grown. Among whites,
that change has been dramatic. In 1976, 81 percent of
Americans identified as white and Christian; today only
43 percent identify as white Christians.
• Politically, the nation has become more liberal in its
social and cultural beliefs. The starkest example of that
is the 2015 legalization of same-sex marriage, a move
that was supported by a majority of Americans, some
thing unthinkable just a few years ago. But gay marriage
is seen as anti-American by those in the white Christian
identity movement.
•And there is a huge generational shift taking place
as the “Millennial” generation leaps into adulthood.
That generation embodies many of these demographic
and social changes. While Americans over age 55 are
75 percent white, Millennials are only 56 percent white
(and the generation behind that is even lower.)
Overall, America is becoming less white, less reli
gious, less traditional and more liberal in its social and
political beliefs.
Those trends scare those in the white Christian iden
tity movement — and its nationalistic siblings on the far
right—who are pushing back by waging a cultural war
designed to stop these changes.
This core group believes that both political parties are
cormpt and evil; they distrust legitimate news reporting,
but at the same time, cling to wild conspiracy theories
found on social media; they believe their identity as
white Christians is under assault by Muslims, gays,
blacks and “globalists”; they distrust science, especially
evolution and global warming; they oppose immigra
tion, especially of non-whites and non-Christians; and
they harbor a huge inferiority complex when they
compare their mostly rural lives to urban “elite” areas
of the nation.
Although self-defined as a religious movement, white
Christian identity adherents appear to care less about
religion as faith and more about religion as a political
weapon with which to do battle against perceived
social and cultural enemies.
But this year’s mid-term election is going to chal
lenge the white Christian identity movement. A back
lash is building against the rank hypocrisy of the far
right. Although the white Christian identity movement
embraces “religion,” it excuses the moral and ethical
failings of men like Moore, so long as those men
embrace the movement’s larger cultural war. Ditto
for Donald Trump, who has the support of this group
despite his low personal ethical standards.
The left is, of course, opposed to the white Christian
identity political movement. But the real danger that
group faces is that moderate conservatives are becom
ing more vocal in opposing the extremist positions of
the far right. Moderate conservatives do not hate others
See Buffington on Page 5A
Beware of political rhetoric
on the campaign trail
Now that the legislative session has
ended, the candidates are fanning
out across the state as they run for
statewide office or for another term
in the General Assembly.
One phrase that you will hear over
and over in this campaign season
— believe me, you will hear it until
you’re sick of hearing it —
is that “Georgia has been
rated the best state to do
business in for five years in
a row.”
Gov. Nathan Deal inserts
the phrase into every
announcement out of the
governor’s office of new
industry relocating to the
state.
“For the fifth year in a
row, Georgia has been
named the No. 1 state in
the nation in which to do
business, highlighting the value of
our business-friendly environment
and the success of our economic
development initiatives,” Deal said in
a typical statement.
House Speaker David Ralston
seemed to find some excuse to utter
it every day during the just-completed
session. The words showed up in a
lot of floor speeches as well.
As the campaign for governor heats
up, you can already hear the claim
being made in some of the early TV
commercials.
Who rated Georgia as the best state
to do business? And how credible is
that ranking?
The ranking comes from Site
Selection magazine, a corporate
real estate publication with offices
in Peachtree Corners. For each of
the past five years, Site Selection has
indeed ranked Georgia as having the
best business climate.
My colleagues at Politifact decided
to examine the credibility of that rat
ing several months ago after Lt. Gov.
Casey Cagle claimed in a speech that
“for four years in a row, we are the
No. 1 state to do business in” (Cagle
has since updated that statement to
five years).
Politifact found that Site Selection
isn’t the only media outlet ranking
the states.
The business channel CNBC, for
example, ranked Georgia second
on its list of business-friendly states,
while the long-established Forbes
magazine put the state in seventh
place. Those are respectable rank
ings, to be sure, but they aren’t No. 1.
Other academic and media outlets
were not nearly so kind to our fair
state.
The Beacon Hill Institute for Public
Policy Research, a conservative think
tank in Boston, dropped Georgia all
the way down to 24th in its ranking of
the states — somewhere around the
middle of the pack.
Researchers at Ball State University
put Georgia at No. 15, which is better
but still a long way from the top of
the list.
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There are many media outlets who
rank the business climates in the var
ious states. They all have their own
secret sauce of factors they use in
determining how high or how low a
state will be ranked.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Georgia
is obviously a good state for those
businesses that choose to
do business here. That’s
why corporations like
Porsche, Mercedes-Benz,
Honeywell, and Kaiser
Permanente have made
major relocations or expan
sions here in recent years.
The state has also become
a leader in the production
of movies and TV shows.
One good reason for
selecting Georgia is obvi
ously the location of the
nation’s busiest airport at
Hartsfield-Jackson. Another is the
abundant pool of talent provided
by institutions like Georgia Tech,
Georgia State, Emory, the University
of Georgia and a well-regarded tech
nical college system.
There could be more on the hori
zon.
Amazon is considering Atlanta as
one of a long list of possible locations
for a $5 billion facility that would
serve as a second corporate head
quarters to its Seattle offices. State
officials have indicated that Georgia
is willing to pay as much as $1 bil
lion in tax exemptions and financial
incentives to Amazon to persuade
them to come here.
That brings us back to my original
question: Is Georgia the best place
ever for doing business?
One business publication says yes.
Other credible sources aren’t quite
so glowing in their assessment.
You are going to hear candidates
continue to make the claim that
Georgia has been ranked as the No.
1 business climate for the last five
years. It isn’t exactly a lie, but it is very
misleading.
As with anything you hear a poli
tician say, take it with a huge grain
of salt.
Tom Crawford is editor of The
Georgia Report, an internet news
service at gareport.com that reports
on state government and politics.
He can be reached at tcrawford@
gareport.com.
The Barrow News-Journal
Winder. Barrow County, Ga.
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2020
presidential
campaign
already starting
to flare up
Don’t look now, but as the focus now is
primarily on this year’s midterm elections
and the statewide election in Georgia,
the 2020 presidential campaign is already
starting to take early shape.
I spent last presidential primary season
working in South Carolina — a state that
typically is critical to any Republican
candidate’s chances of capturing the
party’s nomination — and saw a dozen or
so candidates visit the Lowcountry, most
of them multiple times. The first visit
came from Rick Perry in November 2014
— two years before the actual election —
and 2015 was filled
with one event after
another.
But now, the cal
endar has moved
up even more as
prospective candi
dates begin to hit
the trail with events
mostly in Iowa and
New Hampshire.
After the circus
that was the 2016
election, the 2020
campaign could be
just as wild. But anyone who tells you
they know how things would shake out
would be crazy. Some 21-22 months
before the first primary/caucus vote is
cast, there are simply way too many
unknowns.
We’re flirting with yet another war in
the Middle East. Tensions are high with
North Korea.
The biggest unknown may be the
future of President Trump as Special
Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into
Russian election interference and what
involvement Trump and some of his
campaign officials may have had in it.
The investigation has already produced
criminal indictments and guilty pleas and
shows no signs of going away or ending
anytime soon.
If he isn’t fired or stonewalled through
another firing, Mueller at some point,
probably this year, will make a report to
Congress on at least part of his investi
gation and what implications it has on
the president. It’s not clear whether that
report would come before the midterms,
but if the Democrats do wrestle control of
Congress away from the Republicans in
November, the story of 2019 may be the
impeachment and trial of Donald Trump.
Until we know how that story ends,
it’s a little difficult to speculate about the
2020 Republican primary and what the
field would look like. But even taking the
Russia investigation off the table, Trump’s
presidency has been divisive enough,
even in some GOP circles, that it would
be very surprising if he doesn’t have at
least one primary challenger.
The most likely one at the moment
is Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a two-time
candidate who I saw four times over the
course of six months during the last pri
mary campaign, who is already beating
the bushes in New Hampshire. Outgoing
Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who has been
Trump’s most vocal critic on the GOP
side, could join Kasich in the camp
of moderates who have become disen
chanted with the direction the leadership
is taking their party.
There may also be challenges from
other wings of the party. Sen. Ben Sasse
of Nebraska, who has some Libertarian
leanings, has become increasingly crit
ical of Trump, especially with the presi
dent’s latest trade crusade. Senators Ted
Cruz and Marco Rubio seem ambitious
enough to make another run, and there
will likely be room for a crazy, loo-
ney-tune option like Steve Bannon.
And then there’s another wild card:
whether Mitt Romney will win the Senate
seat in Utah, whether he might replace
Mitch McConnell as Majority Leader and
whether he would be an ally or adversary
to Trump.
The Democratic field is wide open for
the moment. Congressman John Delaney
has already declared a bid but is not a
well-known name. Most polling, if that’s
even worth paying attention to, indicates
that former Vice President Joe Biden and
independent Sen. Bernie Sanders are
the frontrunners for now, which in my
See Thompson on Page 5A
f
scott
thompson