Donald Trump was livid about losing the State of Georgia. He was not happy with losing any of the other states, but being the first Republican candidate to lose the state since 1992 stuck in his craw. He became enraged early on with Brian Kemp, who formerly had received Trump’s full-throated endorsement for governor of the state. In Trump’s mind, that endorsement meant doing his bidding, unquestioning and unhesitatingly, even if asked to do something unwarranted or illegal. Kemp drew the line at Trump’s demand for a special legislature and has been paying for it ever since. Then Trump got into it with Brad Raffensperger, when Raffensperger wouldn’t *find*11,780 votes.

Now Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate David Perdue has announced that had he been governor at the time that he would not have certified the election, “with the information that was available.” Axios:

  • Not with the information that was available at the time and not with the information that has come out now. They had plenty of time to investigate this. And I wouldn’t have signed it until those things had been investigated and that’s all we were asking for,” he said.

Why it matters: There has been no evidence widespread fraud took place in Georgia’s elections last year and the November results were counted three times, once by hand.

Driving the news: The former Georgia senator — who is now running with former President Trump’s endorsement to unseat Gov. Kemp in a GOP primary — spoke to Axios by phone Wednesday afternoon in one of his first interviews since declaring his bid.

Flashback: When Gov. Brian Kemp signed the state’s election certification, he pointed out that state law required him to do so.

  • In an interview with Axios, Perdue said he would also have called for a special session of the legislature if he had been governor one year ago.

  • Perdue said the idea of the session, which he said he asked Gov. Kemp to call at the time, was not to change the November outcome, but to “protect and fix what was wrong for the January election.”

  • At the time, Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that a special session would have amounted to “nullifying the will of the people.”

The bottom line: Perdue conceded his Senate race loss to Jon Ossoff last January.

  • “I’ve never asked for a reversal,” he pointed out.

  • “What I’ve asked for is to get this cleaned up, to make sure that our elections going forward are fair and can rebuild the confidence of people.”

This is a pernicious turn of events for the obvious reason that it buttresses the belief that something out of the ordinary and dishonest happened during the 2020 election. Nothing did. But the beauty of the Big Lie is that the more people hear it, the more believe it. And the ones who don’t believe it are used to the fact that so many people consider it real and so they *believe* it on that level. It’s like believing in Santa Claus. We know it’s not real but it’s part of our culture and so it’s real in that sense, and the legend endures. The Big Lie is like Santa Claus. As long as there’s a reason for it to be part of our culture, it will remain. Except Santa isn’t going to destroy democracy and the Big Lie could.

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Someone explain to him that certification is a formality, *after* the votes are counted. And that if the ballots are bad, then *all* the races are suspect, not just one.

  2. Raffesnsberger showed some backbone during that whole mess and since. However, I don’t believe it’s fair to associate Kemp’s actions with any political or moral courage. On the contrary. Think back on just how he came to be Governor in the first place. He cheated and if a savvy prosecutor was allowed to dig into things broke laws. Not to mention the impropriety of being in the very role of “administering and certifying” a statewide election in which he was a candidate! That alone proves he didn’t give a fuck about appearances. That’s why I believe his refusal to do Trump’s bidding was rooted in actual legal jeopardy. He’s relatively young and could have spent enough time in prison to eat up most of what would have been his “golden” (retirement) years.

    He didn’t stand up to Trump out of courage. No, I believe he stood up to Trump because 1) He knew damn well that although it had been close Trump DID actually lose and therefore 2) He wouldn’t be able to count on a pardon from Trump on any federal charges. Basically he did what he did out of FEAR. He skated on investigators digging too deeply into the goings on during his own election for Gov. and the last thing he wanted or needed was to get all that stirred up again. Ironically (tragic might be a better word) even if Trump takes him down with Purdue he’s probably insulated himself from facing charges for any criminal doings during his own election. It would have been a difficult case to begin with, and he can point to his “integrity” in 2020 early on in any investigation.

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