WITH THE BARK ON:

There is no point in dissembling. Republicans in Georgia are responding to the loss of two Senate seats and to the results of the last presidential election by trying to undo the electoral advantages conferred upon their opponents by universal mail-in voting and other changes. Specifically, they are hoping to dismantle the remarkably efficient turnout machine engineered by Stacey Abrams, whom too many of them dismissed as a hapless kook after she insisted that her own defeat in the 2018 gubernatorial election was a result of widespread irregularities.

If 2020 showed us anything, it was that Abrams was not wrong in insisting that Democrats were capable of winning statewide office in Georgia if conditions on the ground were altered. In response to this, Republicans have decided to live up to their established public image by passing legislation that (whatever its proponents say to the contrary) is straightforwardly meant to suppress the African American electorate, which was ultimately responsible for their losses in the fall.

Whether it will succeed is of less importance than what it tells us about the nature and scope of Republican ambitions. Here I should say that I have no naive opinions about the value of the franchise or the metaphysical dignity of participating in what is fondly described as "our democratic process." But it does seem odd to me that after months of talk about Trump's extraordinary gains among black and Hispanic voters, Republicans are effectively dismissing their own advice here.

It is one thing to say that the future of the GOP is a "multiethnic, multiracial, working-class party." It is another to act as if you expected it to happen, and another still to behave in such a way that suggests you wish it to be so. As far as I can tell most Republican elected officials in Georgia haven't got the faintest interest in attracting African American voters who are inclined to agree with them about social issues ranging from abortion to same-sex marriage to gun rights. Rather than try to compete with the new Abrams machine by reaching out to marginalized communities (especially black voters in rural areas) and building the sorts of broadly diverse coalitions that statewide victories require when voter turnout is high, Georgia Republicans would rather lose black votes on their own familiar terms.

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