Democrats to Win Both Senate Seats in Georgia

Gregory C. Beier

Macro ESG Strategist & Founder

Sustainability Arbitrage LLC

Wednesday, December 16, 2020 11:20 PM ET 

“Markets, politics, and technology for a sustainable future.”

Kelly and David Are Getting Hammered in Georgia

A core principle of Macro ESG is that “crisis brings cooperation” as I wrote in the first piece What is Macro ESG on May 7th. 

I then clarified that idea a bit more when describing the policy process for dealing with a worsening climate in Unifying Systemic and Exogenous Risk Analysis on May 11, “It’s simply going to take a crisis - or a collection of crises - that sufficiently move enough powerful stakeholders far enough away from their preferred positions before they begin to cooperate.” 

But, these exact same words can be used to understand what’s happening down in Georgia – the pattern is the same. 

So, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was quoted from a lunchtime call to Senate Republicans saying, “Kelly and David are getting hammered in Georgia,” this is his call out to his loyal troops who stuck with him in withholding pandemic relief to millions of Americans so far. But when control of the Senate is at stake – then he is willing to change the political calculus. And with the US facing an extraordinary crisis of the long-feared winter wave of the coronavirus – it has finally arrived, moving his team to protect the Georgia elections with national covid relief.  

Now the wheels of Washington are turning again and there will be a bill shortly. Congress has no choice. California has infections soaring and many of the hospitals are at capacity or are getting close – which means that the state will shut down again soon - and the rest of the country is not far behind. 

The Blue Wave will be Completed

It has been the position of Macro ESG for months that we are witnessing the birth of a transformative president as described in the presidential theorizing work of Skowronek at Yale.  

While I believed that Joe Biden would win with a mandate to lead, he did win, but with the same majority that Donald Trump had when he took office. Mr. Biden did not win a massive majority in the electoral college like Regan did of 489 to 49 and FDR did of 472 to 59. This is disconcerting. 

Under Reagan, the Republicans took control of the Senate for the first time in 26 years but not control of the House. Under FDR, the Democrats took control of the Senate for the first time in 16 years with a commanding lead in the House too. 

In the absence of the wide lead that I was expecting at the electoral college, I believe that the voters of Georgia are going to deliver a stinging rebuke of the Republican party. How many times has Donald Trump berated the Governor and all of the state leaders there? How many times did he attempt to subvert the Georgia process? 

I believe that the key voters that are going to come forward are the black vote and crucially – the youth vote, particularly the 25,000 or so voters in Georgia who turned 18 after the Federal election day in November. This block of voters is overwhelmingly in favor of Joe Biden because of his stance on climate change and his progressive positions on civil rights. Moreover, as Donald Trump has stated repeatedly that the election was rigged against him and that the state of Georgia ripped him off at the election – voter turnout will be lower than expected on the Republican side and higher than expected on the Democratic side. 

Bad Virus News Wins Georgia

Plus – and here is the key – I expect that on January 5th the news will be so bad about the pandemic across the country that voters are going to say – No, we are not going to support a party whose President said covid was all going away and was protected in the Senate and who did not move on covid relief until they had to for their own political interests.

And I believe that in this election that minority and youth voters are going to grasp the real opportunity to change the future – the country even. In fact, many minority voters moved to Georgia because they had relatives there from cities where the cost of living became too high (they were gentrified out of their hometowns) so these relatively new Georgia voters have experienced what life is like in other parts of the country - they will be moved to change things.

Georgia is About to Change the World

When Joe Biden has a Senate majority to work with, he will be able to pass a wide range of transformational bills that will drive the United States into an entirely new direction, shifting global power dynamics dramatically - and all due to two parliamentarian positions in one but of 50 states.

This is breathtaking stuff and why I find the study of planetary policy changes so fascinating. Georgia is about to change the world.