From North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz:
Stacey Abrams won.
The fact that she officially announced she will not be taking the office she ran so beautifully for, is a mere technicality—one that good people who were paying attention, realized was likely a foregone conclusion before a single vote was ever counted. Today is less a terrible surprise, than a long-expected moment of grieving.
For months, her opponent made sure this day would come. Already the beneficiary of years of insidious gerrymandering and historic voter suppression that had stacked the deck precariously in his favor—he resorted to blatant theft for safe measure. He chose the same filthy, soulless path that he has seen blazed by similarly small men when facing strong women they are outmatched by and unworthy of: lie and steal and fix the game until you win.
Stacey Abrams won.
“He chose the same filthy, soulless path that he has seen blazed by similarly small men when facing strong women they are outmatched by and unworthy of…”
So he wouldn’t have resorted to any dirty tactics if she had been a man? Ridiculous. He and the GOP wanted power and they did what they could to make that happen. Indeed, they were doing some of this well before they knew who their opponent would be. We would have seen the same thing if his opponent had been a straight white evangelical man.
Not everything is about sexism or racism or homophobia. In this particular case, racism seems a much better accusation than sexism, but it still isn’t necessary to explain Kemp’s actions.