“Neon signs a-flashin’, taxicabs and buses passin’ through the night. A distant moanin’ of a train seems to play a sad refrain to the night.”
If you are in the fourth quarter like I am, you remember these song lyrics by crooner, Brook Benton.
It was indeed a rainy night in Georgia for the GOP.
After the presidential election, arguably the most important election in the country was the runoff election for the two Senate seats in Georgia. The hype was incredibly high for the contest, which pitted two incumbent Republicans against two upstart Democrats. The two Republicans, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, wrapped themselves in Trump’s blanket of deceit and dishonesty. They thought he could do no wrong.
Interestingly, Loeffler is the co-owner of the WNBA team, the Atlanta Dream. The team mounted a huge voter turnout campaign designed to unseat her.
The poll numbers said the race was too close to call.
Ultimately, the two Democrats, Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, won the race.
Reverend Warnock is the Senior Pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a former pastor there. Pastor Warnock is also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. We are brothers in Alpha.
Jon Ossoff is a businessman who owns a production company. He defeated Perdue, denying him another 6-year term in office.
Warnock is Black and Ossoff is White. I can hear Dr. King singing we shall overcome. This is what happened in Georgia last week, because the people did overcome.
Raphael Warnock is the first African American senator in Georgia’s history.
The Peach state has been mostly a Republican state in recent memory, since 1972. However, they did vote for Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980 and also Bill Clinton in 1992.
The state of Georgia did what many political experts thought was impossible. They voted for a Democratic presidential candidate and two Democratic senators.
In my opinion, we are at a crossroads in American politics.
Our political divide is evident. It has been that way, pre-Mr. T, and has only gotten worse since he has been in office. He has created a bad example of leadership. In turn, this has created madness and mayhem for the American people.
With these two wins, there is hope that legislation will be enacted to benefit all of us, and not just some of us.
The new administration will have the advantage in both the House and the Senate. Now the question is how to use this advantage for a change in attitude and in cooperation.
I believe everyone can agree, especially during the past four years there has been unprecedented meanness and ill will.
Men in the senate like Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell and Josh Hawley were problematic when it came to passing legislation for all Americans. Our healthcare was always at risk. Judicial appointments were given the ok by Trump and led by these political minions.
Senator-elects Ossoff and Warnock will go to Washington hoping to change the narrative so that we can regain trust in the American government.
Beginning January 20th, America will be able to exhale.
We have been in a coma of chaos. We were bent, but we were not broken. We have been distraught, depressed and disillusioned. The monarch who sat in the oval office carried the torch of racism and intolerance. Too many people believed in his hate-filled rhetoric. While it was a rainy night in Georgia, joy did come in the morning.
Welcome Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff to the United States Senate.