Published May 25, 2022
Elections often produce mixed messages, but that wasn’t the case in Tuesday’s Georgia primaries. Peach State voters made a loud and clear statement: Democracy is alive and well.
This is most obvious in the state’s raucous Republican contests. Former president Donald Trump intervened in a host of races with the intent to punish the Georgia GOP establishment that had refused to overturn the 2020 election on his behalf. He recruited high-profile challengers to the two biggest “villains” in his twisted tale, Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. He also endorsed little-known challengers to the incumbent attorney general and insurance commissioner, all to replace the existing Georgia Republican leadership with his minions.
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Henry Olsen is a Washington Post columnist and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Photo: Flickr/Heather Kennedy
Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies and provides commentary on American politics. His work focuses on how America’s political order is being upended by populist challenges, from the left and the right. He also studies populism’s impact in other democracies in the developed world.
