The Plight of Georgia's 14th District
A tale of the continued struggles of the historic American nation.
At the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, Texas, Patrick J. Buchanan gave his famous “Culture War” speech. Many paleoconservatives will be familiar with the contents of this speech, but this author presently wishes to focus on a certain theme present throughout the entire speech, namely Mr. Buchanan’s retelling of the stories of people that he had met on the campaign trail.
He mentions places like Ellijay, Georgia, Groveton, New Hampshire, and Hayfork, California. What do these places all have in common? They are overwhelmingly White and Christian, characterized by working-class and blue-collar lifestyles. They are part of what you might call the historic American nation.
To this day Buchanan often recounts how when he was on the campaign trail, many people would approach him with tears in their eyes saying things like, “Save our jobs,” and, “This isn’t the same country I grew up in.”
Close to thirty years after the speech, these same sentiments exist in the same historic American nation.
The people of Georgia’s 14th district are the base of the Republican Party: roughly 85% White, overwhelmingly Christian, predominately non-college educated. They vote for GOP candidates in election after election, propelling “conservative” politicians to office in the hope that their interests are advocated for.
For decades, however, these interests have been demonized as “racist,” “xenophobic,” and “bigoted,” sometimes even by those who claim to represent them. Finally, when someone like Donald Trump or Marjorie Taylor Greene emerges who will actually represent them and be their voice on the national scene, they are, for all intents and purposes, disenfranchised.
The people of the district voted 75% in favour of Greene in the 2020 election, yet special interest groups, out-of-state activists, and ethno-narcissists effectively said that the votes of 230 000 Americans don’t matter. Greene has been stripped of her House Committee assignments by a vote of 230 to 199, with eleven GOP representatives joining all of the House Democrats.
The continued demonization and silencing of the members of the GOP’s loyal base is not a new phenomenon, however, and often the biggest perpetrators of this demonization and silencing are so-called “conservatives” themselves.
During the 2016 election, the National Review’s Kevin Williamson wrote an article entitled, “Chaos in the Family, Chaos in the State: The White Working Class’s Dysfunction.” In it, Williamson writes:
The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. … The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin.
This is how beltway and establishment conservatives think of the people of Ellijay, Groveton, Hayfork, and Georgia’s 14th. The common rallying cry heard from GOP politicians and pundits for the January Senate runoff elections was “Hold the Line.” Now, it’s more like “Hold still while we throw you under the bus.”
Thankfully, it seems that the people of Georgia’s 14th district have learned the truth about how politics works. When looking at a map comparing the decrease in turnout from the Senate runoffs and the November general election, the areas with the highest drops in turnout were in Greene’s district. The voters showed up for Trump and Greene, not for establishment pawns like David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
Going back to Buchanan’s “Culture War” speech, he perfectly sums up how vital these types of blue-collar, culturally conservative people are for the success of the America First movement.
My friends, these people are our people. They don’t read Adam Smith or Edmund Burke, but they come from the same schoolyards and the same playgrounds and towns as we come from. They share our beliefs and convictions, our hopes and our dreams. They are the conservatives of the heart. They are our people. And we need to reconnect with them. We need to let them know we know how bad they’re hurting. They don’t expect miracles of us, but they need to know we care.
This is how the Republican Party should view its loyal voters. Instead, they throw them to the Democratic wolves hoping they can score brownie points with the media and the American regime.
And people are surprised when 64% of Republican voters say they would support a Trump-led third party?