By Tony Perkins, Family Research Council

If the Left wanted to make an example out of Georgia, they succeeded — just not the way they intended. Five days into the Democrats’ election law hysteria, Governor Brian Kemp’s (R-Ga.) grit is winning the messaging war and inspiring millions of incensed Americans to start fighting right along with him. After months of conditioning corporations to do their radical bidding, Joe Biden, Stacey Abrams, and their co-conspiring CEOs have finally overplayed their hand. The pack of lies they tried to pass off about Georgia’s voting reforms is coming back to bite them. And the blowback for baseball is just the beginning.

After a weekend of fierce pushback from Kemp and other Republican leaders, even CNN wanted to know if Joe Biden was going to change the way he talks about Georgia’s voting reforms. At Monday’s press briefing, a Fox News correspondent pointed out that the Washington Post did give him “four Pinocchios.” When Jen Psaki fell back on tired talking points, another reporter asked again. “The president does acknowledge that the new law doesn’t change election day voting hours, right?”

That was just the beginning of a very uncomfortable day for the Left’s floundering campaign against Georgia. Stacey Abrams, one of the main cogs in the Democrats’ misinformation machine, turned to full-on damage control. Atlanta’s businesses, who stand to lose millions of dollars by the MLB’s knee-jerk reaction to move the All-Star Game, were out in force, calling the decision “crushing.” Black restaurant owners like Tudy Rodney couldn’t believe that they’ll be forced to reap what the far-Left’s deception sowed. “We are trying to build back from a pandemic that happened last year, and something like this is not good for business.” Now, Abrams, who was the loudest voice in the room, is trying to absolve herself of all guilt. “Like many Georgians, I am disappointed that the MLB is relocating the All-Star game…” It’s a little late for that, most people say.

Then came the national response — one bruising volley after another. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) began pointing out baseball’s hypocrisy in China and Cuba, then demanded to know if MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred was prepared to back up his woke crusade personally. “I am under no illusion that Major League Baseball will sacrifice business revenue on behalf of its alleged corporate values,” Rubio wrote. “Similarly, I am under no illusion you intend to resign as a member from Augusta National Golf Club. To do so would require a personal sacrifice, as opposed to the woke corporate virtue signaling of moving the All-Star Game from Atlanta.”

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) urged Americans to hit back at Coke and Delta with their wallets. “They started it,” he insisted. If the MLB and its CEO pals want to boycott Georgia, then Americans need to boycott them. “This is the only thing that will teach them a lesson. If Coca-Cola wants to only operate in Democrat states and wants only Democrats to drink Coca-Cola, God love them… We’ll see how well they do when half of the country quits drinking Coca-Cola.” Southwest Airlines, watching this public feud escalate, made the wise decision not to weigh in. When celebrities started pounding the company to pull out of Texas, where a similar election reform effort is underway, they refused.

Other officials, like Governor Greg Abbott (R) in Texas, started publicly distancing themselves from baseball altogether. Abbott, who was scheduled to throw the first pitch at the Rangers’ game, pulled out, pledging not to host a single MLB-wide event in his great state. “This decision does not diminish the deep respect I have for the Texas Rangers baseball organization,” he said, but “it is shameful that America’s pastime is being influenced by partisan politics.”

Then came the counter-attacks from black conservatives like Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who made it clear that every African American should offended by the Left’s phony racial narrative about this bill. It’s “disrespectful,” he argued. “It is literally the soft bigotry of low expectations,” he said angrily. “And what’s worse is, they never show data about black people [not having] access to IDs or [how] it disproportionally affects them… It’s outrageous…”

Look, Governor Kemp said on “Washington Watch” Monday, “I don’t think [Democrats] really care what the bill actually says.” This false narrative is “all based on a lie that Joe Biden and Stacey Abrams have been spreading before they even read the bill. They have alternative motives here, quite honestly…” This law, as even state officials have pointed out, doesn’t limit voting — it expands it, more than most liberal states.

“One hundred thirty four of 159 counties will actually be offering more early voting hours or more election hours than they were in the last election because of the way this bill levels the playing field,” the governor explained. “So the whole argument about… keeping working men and women from voting. Well, obviously, if we were doing that, we wouldn’t be adding an additional Saturday that people could vote.” The state is also adding one ballot dropbox per county, which wouldn’t have existed without this law. Not to mention, Kemp went on, “We’ve been using voter ID to vote in person since the mid-2000s… They act like we’re creating the hardship. That is not the case… It’s hard to really come out and say that the president of the United States is lying about this bill. But that’s exactly what he’s doing.

The reality is, he says, “This playbook was written weeks ago before the final version of the bill came together before I signed it into law. So, it’s really condescending to the American people and the hardworking folks around our country… But I do believe it is a ‘woke-up’ call, if you will. People are really opening their eyes to this. I mean, if you can’t keep sports out of politics, especially Major League Baseball, [then] what’s next? And that was really my charge to people not only in Georgia but across the country. We’ve got to unite against this cancer culture.”

And thanks to his courage, Americans are. They see Governor Kemp at the tip of the spear, standing strong, and it’s given others the boldness to do the same. We commend him — not just for defending Georgia — but for putting wind in the sails of every other reform effort in the nation.

By Jeffrey Lord, The American Spectator

Ya can’t make it up.

Delta Airlines and Coca Cola, both based in Atlanta, are attacking the Georgia voting law because it demands voter ID. Yet, in fact, both companies require a photo ID themselves.

Delta demands an ID to board their planes. Coke requires an ID to get into the company’s shareholder meetings.

Fox Business quoted the Coke demand, issued before the 2020 company shareholder meeting:

At the entrance to the meeting, we will verify your registration and request to see your admission ticket and a valid form of photo identification, such as a driver’s license or passport.

Here is the Delta requirement as listed on the airline’s website:

 REQUIRED TRAVEL DOCUMENTS

Travel Within the U.S.

In the United States, you need a valid U.S. government-issued photo ID or a passport from your country of origin to travel through security. You must show that the name on your boarding pass matches the legal name on your unexpired government-issued ID.

In other words, in typical woke style, Delta and Coke are saying, “No ID for thee but ID for me.”

Let’s recall that Georgia’s demand for voter ID is being called a return to Jim Crow, the massive system of segregation that was set up by the Democratic Party in the post–Civil War era. The Georgia law is no such thing. In fact, over 30 states require a photo ID to vote. But if requiring a photo ID is now racist, it is perhaps time to rename both companies to reflect their own Jim Crow policies.

Not content in being left out of this new hypocrisy, a woke United Airlines also jumped on the ID bandwagon. Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw was having none of it, quickly pointing to United’s own policy on IDs, which reads:

Travelers 18 years of age or older are required to have a valid, current U.S. federal or state-issued photo ID that contains name, date of birth, gender, expiration date and a tamper-resistant feature for travel.

Said the congressman on Twitter:

That’s your policy, United. Pandering hypocrites. Just shut up.

This doesn’t even touch the mind-boggling hypocrisy of Major League Baseball (MLB). The league ostentatiously pulled the All-Star Game from Atlanta and relocated it to Denver. Colorado, by the by, requires ID to vote in person. And, yes indeed, the MLB itself requires ID, as Fox noted in this headline:

MLB requires photo ID to pick up tickets from Will Call, but boycotts Georgia for voter ID law

South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace called the league out on Twitter

Then there is this, also headlined at Fox:

‘Woke’ MLB moving All-Star Game from 51% Black Atlanta to 76% White Denver, critics note

The game’s relocation is expected to deliver a severe economic blow to Atlanta, where nearly 30% of businesses are Black-owned

Yes, you read that right. The MLB, which itself requires photo idea to pick up Will Call tickets to its games, is moving the All-Star game from a 51 percent majority black city to a 76 percent white city. And that city is located in a state that requires ID to vote in person.

And oh yes. The MLB commissioner, one Rob Manfred, has thus far declined to give up his own membership at the famed Augusta National Golf Club, which is, of course, in Georgia and is the site for the Masters golf tournament.

All of this being the case, history has shown how to deal with Jim Crow institutions, and former President Trump has picked up on the idea. Here’s the headline from the Epoch Times: 

Trump Calls for Boycott of MLB, Coca-Cola, Delta Over Opposition to Georgia Election Reforms

And the former president wasn’t alone in urging Americans to “fight back” against these woke corporate bullies and bigots. Here was Fox reporting on the latest from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul:

Rand Paul on MLB-Georgia controversy: ‘If they want to boycott us, let’s boycott them’

Corporations may change their tune ‘when half the country quits drinking Coca-Cola and half the country quits using Delta’, GOP senator says 

Sen. Paul also correctly noted that those who believe African-Americans would be disenfranchised by being required — like every voter in Georgia — to have an ID card are “very racist in their thinking.” Bingo.

The real bottom line here is that “woke-ism” is in fact itself racist. It is Jim Crow personified. Every American in the eyes of the woke must be judged by their skin color, and America itself divided by race. Or, as famed segregationist and Democrat Gov. of Alabama George Wallace put it way back in 1963: “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

It is no accident that this is coming from the American Left. As I have documented in The American Spectator repeatedly, as here, the Democratic Party is in fact the Party of Race. It was founded by slave-owners, was a staunch, on-the-record supporter of slavery, and after it was abolished through the 13th Amendment — over the objection of Democrats in Congress — the party launched the Jim Crow era in which Americans were to be segregated and judged by skin color.

The Party of Race has a culture of racism, and that culture has now infected the corporate suites of Delta, Coke, United, Major League Baseball, and more. Everyone and everything is to be judged by race. Somewhere Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to break the MLB’s Jim Crow policies with his hiring by the Brooklyn Dodgers — in 1947 — is surely shaking his head at the return of the judge-by-color crowd at the MLB.

Not least in this latest racist surge is the shameful conduct of President Joe Biden. Biden, with his own appalling record on race, made a point of supporting the All-Star move from majority-black Atlanta to the overwhelmingly white Denver.

Which is to say the president of the United States deliberately targeted an American state for an economic boycott that will do real economic damage to the 30 percent of that state’s majority-black capital city’s businesses that are black-owned. Meanwhile Biden is silent on boycotting the Olympics over China’s genocidal treatment of China’s Uyghur Muslims. Texas Congressman Crenshaw stepped up to the plate again, tweeting this:

Hey Joe Biden, you gonna boycott the Beijing Olympics because of mass genocide? Or are you just into hurting Atlanta small businesses that were planning on the all-star game?

This is no small moment in American history. This is nothing less than an attempted resegregation of America, led by some of the biggest corporations in America.

Not good.