By L. Cramer I’ve lived in Georgia my entire life, and like many people, I’ve lived in multiple metro Atlanta areas and have watched once

Over the past ten days or so, former President Donald Trump has slowly boiled off any semblance of the unity message that was made front and center following the events of July 13th. Coming out of the Convention, Republicans were feeling very confident… maybe a little too confident. Now, I won’t address the conspiracies of the complexities on why the DNC agreed to an early debate or how well crafted the timing of the switch of President Biden and VP Harris was; or how quickly the media and delegates fell in line. This is a bit of a supposition on why former President Trump started late night social media tirades followed by attacks on at least 3 sitting Republican Governors that culminated with an attack on Gov. Brian Kemp and his wife First Lady Marty Kemp on Saturday. Let’s rewind just two weeks, which admittedly in today’s world can seem like an eternity. The day is July 21st and Trump is leading Biden by 3 points nationally. Trump is also leading by five in Arizona, seven in Nevada, one in Wisconsin, one and a half in Michigan, four in Pennsylvania, four in North Carolina and two in Georgia. This meant that as of that morning, Trump had numerous routes to victory and was pushing towards not just victory but rather something of a rout. The electoral count would have been Former President Trump 312 President- Joe Biden 226.This is where the country was just two short weeks ago but alas, the game has changed, and Democrats have rallied around VP Harris. VP Harris is a bit of problem for the Trump campaign because the messaging that they have spent millions of dollars on is now likely to be weaponized back against them. Former President Trump is now the oldest Presidential candidate in American History. Further, the messaging on the economy, border and even international events is a bit muted because VP Harris is not the face of the administration. Case and point? Today, the former President attempted to label the markets sputter as the “Kamala Crash” … the only issue? VP Harris is not in charge of fiscal policy, that would be the Republican House nor is she in charge of monetary policy, that would be Fed Chair Jerome Powell that was appointed by none other than Former President Trump. So maybe this explains why President Trump has been a bit ornery, but I propose something a bit worse for the Former President. I propose that internal polling for the former President is not just indicating a shift in the race but rather a sort of coup that has been pulled off by the Democratic party. Democrats have followed the advice of the fictional President Frank Underwood “if you don’t like how the table is set, turn over the table”. They have waited for DJT to select a VP candidate, which at the time was a base election so Senator JD Vance made perfect sense. Most Republicans would be satisfied, and he would further energize the rust belt base. However, with the switch the election is now an enthusiasm election which means that the Trump/Vance ticket will need to not only motivate the base but also pickup votes from other key demographic groups that are either purple or traditionally lean blue. President Trump realizing this would start to see internal polling that is indicating that the race that he viewed just two weeks ago as simple and almost assured is now not only slipping away but becoming increasingly difficult. Typically, the campaign that has the most paths to victory is the campaign that wins in Presidential elections and today August 7th, that campaign is no longer the Trump/Vance ticket but rather the Harris/Walz. So where does the race stand? Nationally the race is now Harris 45.7% -Trump 43.6%. In Arizona, Trumps lead that was 5% is down to just 1.4%. Nevada has tightened from 7% to .6%. Wisconsin? Well, it is even worse, a state where Trump led by 1% is now Harris by 1.3%. Michigan has not only flipped but is now out of the margin of error, VP Harris +2.4%. North Carolina remains steadfastly red but by only 1.9%. Pennsylvania has become the lynch pin for a Trump victory and is now a must win for him to return to the White House; the polling indicates that it is now VP Harris +.9%. Which finally brings us to Georgia and why President Trump might have thrown a temper tantrum on stage on Saturday. Georgia which was considered a done deal by consultants on both sides of the aisle just two weeks ago has now become a coin flip and though Trump does still maintain a lead it is by just 1.2%. President Trump needs to hold every voter he can in the State of Georgia which in any normal year would mean attempting to make amends with the most popular Governor in America but in President Trumps world, that translates to an increase in berating the popular Governor until he relents and gives in to Trump’s demands. But that is not likely to happen and instead appears to have blown up spectacularly in the former Presidents face. What’s worse for Republicans is that even those in the State that are the most ardent defenders of the former President seemingly know this as they have quietly murmured over the last 72 hours.So where are we now? Well based on the polling, a race that was almost assuredly a Trump victory has now become a race in which there is a greater than fifty percent chance of the next President being Kamala Harris. The electoral count based on these polls would be VP Harris 270- President Trump 268. Now, admittedly polls are just snapshots in time and these things can change rapidly as we have just seen in the last two weeks. BUT campaigns have information that we do not have and the return to 2020 level temper tantrums over that last two weeks seems to indicate that the internal information that the former President is being given is worse than what we are seeing now. He can overcome this, but it will require serious self-control and precision messaging from now to election day, and only he himself can control that over the next 91 days!

11,780.

That is the 2020 margin of victory for Joe Biden over Donald Trump in Georgia. That is 0.23% of the total vote. So, one would think a smart politician would be doing their best to appeal to as many voters as they possibly could to avoid a similar result when seeking the presidency for a second time in a state that has proven to be winnable for Republicans.

Donald Trump may very well believe that the 2020 election was stolen from him. But at this point that should not matter.

The price of everything is higher. Traditional values are being labeled backward and sometimes even called evil. Young people may never be able to afford their own homes. And the Democrats, in collusion with the media, hid the faltering mental acuity of the sitting President and replaced him with a guano-level-crazy liberal who has failed at her delegated responsibility of securing the border, has called for forced universal healthcare, mandatory gun buy backs, closing down American industries, and shutting off America’s ability to be energy independent. That is her record.

And with the murder of Laken Riley in broad daylight of an Athens afternoon at the hands of an illegal alien, this should be an absolute, no-brainer slam dunk for Donald Trump.

In what should have been an early victory lap for Donald Trump as he held a packed house rally at Georgia State’s Convocation Center in Atlanta, he instead fumbled the ball on the 3-yard line and handed the momentum to the Democrats in the Peach State. Instead of focusing on laying out his vision for the country, he took the opportunity to not only slam the most popular Republican in Georgia, but also his wife.

Trump’s Kemp bashing was not reserved just for social media as he continued to skewer Kemp from the rally stage. It got so bad, that GOP uber activist, Kathy Dudley Wortham, who had been in attendance at the rally, got up and left.

I reached out to Kathy to ask her permission to share her post, and she added this:

“I had truly hoped to hear Trump deliver an olive branch to Kemp. I could be team Kemp AND team Trump. It is possible. Had Trump followed the lead of McKoon and bashed Duncan, I could live with that. Instead, he targeted Brian Kemp and Marty? Lowbrow. I realized that I’m not voting for the leader of Sunday School. I can tolerate grown-up language. I tolerate the difference of opinion. I respect other’s views. I felt a range of emotions. I gave Trump one “hit” on Brian Kemp, but left on the second. On the ride home, I listened in disgust as the insults just kept coming. When you’re a guest I someone’s home, you don’t berate the homeowner….unless you’re family. In the south, we call that ‘Thanksgiving.’”

There are some folks out there who are criticizing Brian Kemp for not being in attendance, so we reached out to Cody Hall, long time spokesperson for Governor Kemp, who confirmed the governor was not invited. We also confirmed that Attorney General and rumored 2026 gubernatorial candidate, Chris Carr, was not invited. A Facebook post by Carr showed he was in Athens moving his daughter in for the fall semester at UGA. I didn’t have to check with Secretary Raffensperger’s team after that, because we all know Trump ain’t going to invite him to anything.

In the Biden-Trump debate, Trump claimed that he could prevent or end wars with a phone call. So why, when the stakes are Georgia’s electoral votes, would you not demonstrate that ability? Maybe because you actually are not capable of doing that.

After Trump’s assassination attempt, many Republicans in Georgia who had doubted they could press the button for him one more time had begun the journey of returning to voting for Trump. Among those is Matthew Krull, the current Republican and former Solicitor General for Douglas County. Krull encapsulated that journey in a well written Facebook post.

Ok, get ready to be triggered…

They way that Trump conducted himself in the Georgia US Senate runoff in 2020 brought me to the belief that I would have never voted for him again (essentially tanking Loeffler’s and Perdue’s chances to win because if they won their runoffs, Mitch McConnell would have been the leader of the Republican Party and instead of Trump).

Then when he said that Stacy Abrams would have been a better Governor than Brian Kemp put the nail in the coffin for me voting for him ever again.

Then there was an awakening when the Democrats prosecuted and convicted him for some horseshit charges that they have never prosecuted anyone else for. I started rethinking my decision to never vote for him again.

Then when I saw the elder abuse being committed against Joe Biden during the debate, I thought that the shadow government that was propping Joe needed to be stopped. I was starting to come around to the idea of voting for Trump in November.

Then last month, when someone attempted to murder Trump, I was shaken to my core. Not because it was Trump, but because no person should ever killed because of politics. I came to the realization that I was fairly certain that I would cast my vote for Trump for a third time in November.

Trump had been mellowing over the last few months. He was being targeted legally and physically because of politics. I was back on the Trump train.

Then today for no particular reason he decides to attack Governor Brian Kemp and Marty Kemp. I have quickly gotten off the train at the next station.

Mr. Trump, the election is less 100 days away, you still need to earn my vote.

Maybe the #gagop and #gagra will get the message to him that he should talk about inflation, cost of goods, immigration, housing costs, the destruction of women’s athletics, rather than attacking a very popular elected official in Georgia and his family. (And in full transparency, someone I like a whole lot more than Trump).

The clock is ticking, do [you] want my vote?
Matthew Krull’s Facebook Post 8/3/2023

11, 780. Point zero two-three percent. Every vote is needed, and all Trump did at his Atlanta Rally is solidify his base while sticking a finger in the eye of the people he actually needs to win this state.

As for me, I am not a “Never-Trump” guy. Trump can, in fact, still earn my vote. To do so, all he needs to do is lick the bottom of Brian Kemp’s shoes clean after he has accidentally stepped in a pile of dog crap at one of Marty Kemp’s pet adoption events at the Governor’s Mansion. And I am going to need to see it in person. After that, I will gladly vote for Trump, but not until then.

In case any Republican activists out there don’t believe that the rally was anything other than a disaster, I will leave you with a litany of screenshots from various Republican elected officials, activists, media personalities, and politicos from around the state. And for those fools who would blame these people for having this reaction instead of holding your candidate accountable for his inability to do what it takes to win, please reserve all manure deposits for the farm.

.

A few months ago, through work at my day job, I was asked to participate in a series of table top exercises hosted by the Brennan Center that were designed to simulate the first year of a Donald Trump presidency.

Before I go any further I must state in the most unequivocal terms possible that the scenarios presented by the game organizers were based on extremely caricaturized visions of Republicans, not just Trump, and how they would govern. Because of that cartoonish vision I will not be referring to Trump by name as President in this post moving forward. I have never met Donald Trump. I have been simultaneously proud and disgusted by him at times. He has said some incredibly bone headed things that drive me up the wall, which means he may have earned the depiction the game organizers pinned on him. But I am not ready to surrender the notion that there are still some very serious minded Republicans surrounding him and others who also take their elected jobs seriously. So for the sake of this post, instead of referring to the President by name, I will simply treat that role as a generic authoritarian who somehow gets elected.

The organizers have held the participants under an embargo which has prevented the latter from discussing the exercises which lifted today. You can read an op-ed in the Washington Post from their perspective here. It mentions me, although not by name, because I am the retired GOP State Legislator who played the role of Republican Governor and pushed back on the President’s desire to federalize the National Guard. More on that in a minute.

As a participant, I played the role of Red State Governor in two of the exercises and the part of Red Congress in a third.

At the outset we were given the direction to, “win the game.” This allowed me to play the game with a different set of motives from the people who played parts in the President’s administration. My thought process was that as someone who had taken an oath to the Constitution, had to stand for reelection, or protect my ambition to seek higher office, winning was defined at least in part by what was best for me. Acting as a lemming and jumping of the proverbial cliff and committing political suicide isn’t something a lot of State Governors I have met would do recklessly.

In each of our scenarios, Republicans held a 51 seat majority in the Senate and were the minority in the House. I was at a separate gathering just weeks before the exercises took place where I got to hear U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, give an impassioned argument for preserving the Senate Filibuster Rule at all costs. Because she was recently reelected to a six year term that would not end until 2028, I felt confident that she and at least two other GOP colleagues would resist the call to end the filibuster.

So in the game when I played Red Congress, I informed the President that there were not enough votes to end the rule. Their reaction? To dox the Senators who refused. I am not aware of a single instance where doxing someone was effective at getting them to change their stance. But it was just one example of how outlandish some of the game conditions were. With Congress split between Democrat and Republican control there was little I could do to impact the game one way or another. At one point I had gotten buy in from Blue Congress on a comprehensive immigration reform package that they simply walked away from after some of their side’s activists wanted more. That part felt very real.

By the third game, I had become increasingly concerned about what the work product would be from these simulations. What would they say was the result? How would they portray the results to the public? Would any Republicans get a fair shake at all?

The final game took place on a Monday and we received the directives for that game on Sunday evening. The President’s very first initiative would be to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to federalize the National Guard and use them for civil law enforcement duties.

I cannot think of a single Republican Governor who would simply go along with allowing their Guard Troops, who on the whole are not trained for civil law enforcement, to be used in this manner. Again, you must account for the personal responsibilities of a Governor and their future ambitions. So with my concern about the work product that would come from these games in mind, I set about trying to show how federalism could stem the flow of authoritarianism under the right circumstances, hoping that I could show a ray of hope in the darkness of the games.

Two other factors that must be considered here are:

How Governors are protective of their own states, resources, and authority.

If something went wrong and American soldiers ended up killing other Americans, how would that destabilize the national mood? Governors would pay the political price for this when POTUS will be gone in four years.

One more note of how protective Governors are with their National Guard; earlier this year the Biden Administration pitched the idea of moving guard units under the full time command of the Space Force. Forty-Eight State Governors, (and 5 more from US Territories) signed a joint letter protesting the proposal. The other two were Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida, who sent their own and individual letters in protest.

All 50 state Governors, singing in one voice. In this age of hyper partisanship and tribalism, why? Well, in their own words, “This legislation disregards gubernatorial authorities regarding the National Guard and undermines over 100 years of precedent as well as national security and military readiness… It is imperative that Governors retain the authority laid out in United States Code (U.S.C.) Title 32, Section 104. LP480 undercuts this critical authority by allowing a transfer of covered space units from the National Guard to the United States Space Force without abiding by Title 32 or Title 10. Specifically, section 18238 of Title 10 states that there should be no removal or withdrawal of a unit of the Air National Guard without consultation and approval from Governors.” Emphasis mine.

Authority. Authority. Authority.

So with all of that in mind I met with the Blue State Governor before the game even started to lay out my plan. I then went to the Red Congress and asked them to see if they could work a deal with Blue Congress to get a crime bill in place that would preserve civil law enforcement authority in the states, while providing additional funding for additional officers, training, and equipment.

Blue Congress agreed on one condition; POTUS may not invoke the Insurrection Act.

All of POTUS’s military advisors told him to take the deal. One went so far as to say that he could always invoke the Insurrection Act later if he felt it was necessary. At this point I interjected with something along the lines of, “Mr. President, law enforcement is a state function and I would ask that you allow me to do my job. The Legislation you have before you can cement your legacy as one of the most effective President’s in history. You give us the tools we need to do what you want us to do at the same time in your first week in office you beat down the Democrats’ defund the police efforts. You should consider how big this win is.”

For the briefest of moments I could see in POTUS’s eyes we had painted him into a box. There is no realistic world where POTUS doesn’t take that deal. He hesitated ever so briefly, and said no. He was moving forward with his plan. In real politics, strongmen make enemies looking to take them down rather than do what they want. POTUS was creating that environment.

Remember, recent precedent has shown that the Governors will unite in a bipartisan manner when their own authority is under attack by the Federal Government. In order for any Governor to go along with sending their National Guard without being federalized, the conditions would have to be historically bad. We are talking way worse than the Rodney King riots.

But that wasn’t our scenario at all.

In one of our scenarios Taylor Swift decided to hold protest/pro-democracy concerts. POTUS reacted by first deputizing, as federal agents, the Proud Boys, and then sending them to quash the protest. Violence ensued and a role of the dice showed roughly 20 people died.

Let’s just completely set aside how ludicrous the notion is that any POTUS would deputize the Proud Boys. I mean… just damn. I will only say it is an example of how these very seriously minded, highly educated organizers have arrived at a place of irrational fear of what may happen. But this was the scenario they presented us with that would be used by POTUS to turn 21 year old part time soldiers into police officers overnight.

By lunch time the organizers pulled me aside to question my game play. They indicated that they thought there would be more compliance from Governors with the President’s agenda. As I have laid it out here, I explained to them why between POTUS and me, I was the one being the most realistic. Guardsmen are usually trained in combat support roles. My father-in-law, who retired as a member of the Florida National Guard, was in an air defense artillery unit as an example. There are only a handful of Military Police units. And anytime the Guard is called up, those soldiers leave their day jobs as firemen, paramedics, etc. There is an enormous cost to local communities whenever it is needed, so it better be needed.

As lunch was wrapping up, the person playing POTUS approached me to encourage me to be more compliant. He mentioned Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Greg Abbott who would fall in line. I have a mutual friend of Governor Sanders, and from what I can ascertain I honestly don’t think she would voluntarily send her National Guard to another state to be used as civil law enforcement unless it was way worse. I would like to believe that she would be one of the voices of reason that would be trying to talk POTUS out of it. I don’t know for sure if that would be the case or not, but 20 people dying at a Taylor Swift concert with no other significant outbreaks of violence lend me to believe I was on the right track.

After lunch and once the game resumed, POTUS addressed me as Governor Abbott and asked that I voluntarily send my guard troops to California to quash civil protests. As Governor Abbott, I reminded POTUS that Texas is under a foreign invasion and that my troops were already deployed to the southern border, so I refused his request. The administration responded by attempting to bring trumped up federal child molestation charges against Governor Abbott before the game master intervened and would not allow them to do it.

Yep. I was the one who wasn’t playing it realistically. /sarcasm

After the game concluded the administration said that the governors really thwarted their plans and it became discouraging to the whole effort. I have not seen that mentioned in the post event materials published by the Brennan Center. Maybe they just thought of all the scenarios we were faced with I didn’t play it the way they thought it would go and therefore it wasn’t worth mentioning. But I believe they missed an opportunity to really highlight the strength of shared power and authority in the federalism model.

At the very end, the organizers asked everyone if they thought Trump would comply with a court order he disagreed with unless is came from the Supreme Court. None of us, including me, thought that he would. But for me it wasn’t about Trump specifically. I am old enough to remember how the Supreme Court ruled against Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan and he did it anyway.

On June 18th, as I was heading home from the work of the simulations, I posted this on Facebook:

Heading home from DC and the thing I am struck with most from this particular visit is just how disconnected the people who are of this place are with the viewpoint of the rest of us.

I cannot say what I have been up to for the past several days just yet, the org I have been working with wants to publish a report on their work first. After they do I will being writing about the experience at Peach Pundit.

But I will say this much right now: I am more in love with our big, beautiful, system of federalism now more than ever. But I am dismayed at how many people here have completely lost faith in it. Stay tuned for more at the appropriate time.
My personal Facebook post

I have been saying for a while how both sides contribute to the erosion of public confidence in our institutions. I can see how these exercises, which relied on incredible scenarios and cartoonish representations of Republicans in office, have the potential to contribute to that erosion of faith in not only federalism, but other institutions as well.

Governors should, and I believe would, take every action at their disposal to preserve civil law enforcement responsibilities within the states without federal interference. Yet, that adherence and loyalty to federalism seemed to be lost on the organizers and in its place was some sort of belief that all Republicans would be motivated to simply go along with whatever the President wanted.

But the very thing that took them by surprise when Bart Gellman wrote, “Unexpectedly, the Red governor, played by a retired GOP state legislator, also objected,” is the very thing that would be able to save us from any authoritarian President, whether their name is Trump, Biden, or Harris.

Cobb County Superior Court Judge Kellie Hill has become the latest Judge to invalidate the County Commission “Home Rule” maps adopted by the Cobb County Board of Commissioners by a 3-2 party-line vote in October 2022 holding that the County Commission did not have the authority to redistrict. Additionally, according to the Marietta Daily Journal, Hill “has ordered new elections for Posts 2 and 4 of the Board of Commissioners.”

In her ruling, Hill wrote, “The Court is persuaded that the resolution adopting the Home Rule Map was outside of the authority granted to the Cobb County Commission under the Home Rule Paragraph of the Georgia Constitution.”

Hill has become the second Cobb County Superior Court Judge to invalidate the Home Rule map, however, the previous decision by Judge Ann Harris was thrown out by the Georgia Supreme Court in May when they decided that the plaintiffs in the case did not have standing to bring the suit. The current suit has been brought by Alicia Adams. Adams qualified to run for the Commission Post 2 seat, currently occupied by Democrat Jerica Richardson, who did not seek re-election, but instead ran a primary challenge against Congresswoman Lucy McBath for the Sixth Congressional District. McBath won the primary against Richardson and several other challengers without a runoff.

The Cobb County Board of Elections disqualified Adams due to lack of residency. Adams lives in Post 2 according to the map passed by the General Assembly, but not in the Post according to the Home Rule map.

There is little doubt that Hill’s decision will be appealed by Cobb County.