Opinion
Sheer ambition has pitched this red state's leadership into a civil war
When the Georgia Senate stunned the state Capitol and wrapped up work before the typical midnight deadline on the last night of the 2025 session, a visibly frustrated House Speaker Jon Burns took a not-so-subtle dig at his friends across the hall.
“The House is focusing on its priorities of getting the job done, and we’re not worried about moving on to some other higher office,” the powerful Republican told reporters shortly before gaveling out his own chamber. “We came here to do a job, and we did our job.”
With the exception of the presidency, just about every position in politics can be considered a stepping stone to something bigger. But it’s not often (maybe once every four or eight years) that ambitious and powerful lawmakers suddenly go from colleagues to campaign rivals as they all seek to add another title to their resume.
The tension is already creeping into Georgia’s upper chamber, where greetings on the Senate floor have started to sound more aspirational than ceremonial. It’s not out of the ordinary, a former lawmaker once said, to hear someone walk onto the Senate floor and randomly shout, “Good morning, Congressman!”
But it’s becoming more than just a joke tossed around the chamber. At least 10 state senators — Republican and Democrat — are leaving behind their seats and leadership positions to run for “some other higher office,” in the colorful words of the speaker. And that number could grow as more offices open up ahead of the 2026 elections.
Let’s start at the top: Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who serves as president of the senate, recently launched a bid for governor.
Three Republican state senators have already entered the race to succeed Jones: Steve Gooch of Dahlonega, John F. Kennedy of Macon and Blake Tillery of Vidalia. State Sen. Josh McLaurin, a Sandy Springs attorney, is the only known Democratic contender so far.
With Attorney General Chris Carr also fighting for the governor’s chair, Republican state Sens. Brian Strickland of McDonough and Bill Cowsert of Athens, both lawyers, are aiming to become the state’s next top prosecutor. State Sen. Emanuel Jones is challenging a longtime incumbent in a metro Atlanta congressional seat. And state Sen. Jason Esteves is running in the Democratic primary for governor.
A lot of these names aren’t “backbenchers” — they are synonymous with the levers of power in the chamber. Kennedy is the president pro tempore, Gooch is the majority leader, and Tillery chairs the budget-drafting appropriations committee. Strickland chairs the judiciary committee, and Cowsert is also a former Senate leader (and a brother-in-law to outgoing Gov. Brian Kemp).
And a change in Republican bylaws means that many of these members must immediately stand down from their roles in leadership while they campaign for a different office, which means new leaders are already being named ahead of the 2026 session.
While this mass exodus of seasoned legislators definitely says a lot about their own ambitions (and how awkward next year’s session is going to be), it’s also a sign of the power transition underway at the state Capitol with Gov. Brian Kemp entering the final year of his term.
The governor’s mansion isn’t the only big office up for grabs. Insurance Commissioner John King is running to oust Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper are said to be plotting their next moves as well. More open statewide offices could lead to more lawmakers ditching their annual 40 days of work in search for higher office.
With several key senators already departing, however, the chamber is set to lose years of wisdom and institutional knowledge as key offices prepare to change hands. So the next governor and lieutenant governor won’t be the only ones learning on the job — a lot of their legislative partners will be new to their roles as well.
Strickland says the looming leadership turnover brings a great opportunity for new faces and names to step up to the plate.
“I think you’re going to see a chance for new people to step in who might have different leadership styles, but will maybe bring some needed changes in some particular areas,” he said recently while on break from court.
In the short term, lawmakers will need to convene for one more session before next November. But with so many senators running for other offices, how many of them will be focused on doing the work they were elected to do and not itching to get back out on the campaign trail?
“I think it’s incumbent on all of us who are running statewide to set [our campaigns] aside for those 40 days and to do the job we were elected to do for those 40 days,” finished Strickland.
“Obviously there’s going to be some tension. My hope is that it does not come from me.”
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This Dem attempt to look anti-woke is just plain dumb
I was not planning to write about Cracker Barrel’s new logo. Neither was I planning to write about the voluminous rightwing backlash against it. The redesign, which does away with the old man sitting on a chair leaning against a barrel, doesn’t look “woke” to me. But change is hard for some, especially right-wingers who see dangers everywhere.
I feel compelled to talk about the logo change because the official Twitter account for the Democratic Party decided to talk about it. Not only that, but the account, in a post viewed nearly 14 million times, decided to agree with the rightwing freakout.
“We think the Cracker Barrel rebrand sucks, too,” the post says, over Norman Rockwell’s painting of a man voicing an unpopular opinion.
I don’t want to make too much of this, but this is a microcosm of a macro problem within the Democrats, in particular that faction of the party that has most of the money and most of the influence over the press corps.
In short, the problem is rooted in the belief among elite Democrats that they can compromise with bad actors who in turn are motivated by compromise to be worse. Even shorter, if you accept as true the lies told by the fascists, you have two enemies: them and you.
If I must guess, I’d say the Democrats’ point is showing at least some portion of the people who are freaking out about Cracker Barrel’s redesign that the Democrats played no role in the “wokification” they see. The point might even be some sort of solidarity, as if to say the Democrats dislike “radicals” and “cancel culture” as much as you do.
To this dominant faction of the Democratic Party, I would imagine this move is reasonable, perhaps politically strategic, as it seems to create a middle ground between partisan poles. (Some wonks might call this by its old name, “triangulation.”) If that doesn’t appeal to right-wingers, per se, it might appeal to indie voters who value more than anything their reputations for being nonpartisan. I might even concede to its effectiveness if the rightwing freakout were based on something true.
There’s your problem.
It isn’t based on anything. The total substance of the allegations against Cracker Barrel is the impact of the allegations themselves. That is to say, if the allegations “work” as intended, the allegations are real.
Those allegations are themselves the consequence of a reaction to change and the search for the presumably malicious causes of it. Because these are fascists and rightwing authoritarians, those causes are always the result of some kind of conspiracy by their perceived enemies. And because perceived enemies are always seeking to destroy them, change is always some sign of imminent destruction.
From their view, Cracker Barrel’s rebrand is a declaration of war.
That’s why, from the rightwing perspective, Christopher Rufo did not sound delusional when he said “we must break the Barrel.”
He went on: “It's not about this particular restaurant chain — who cares — but about creating massive pressure against companies that are considering any move that might appear to be ‘wokification.’ The implicit promise: Go woke, watch your stock price drop 20 percent, which is exactly what is happening now. … The Barrel must be broken.”
Objectively speaking, it is delusional, and no one is entitled to a public hearing of their delusions, no matter how stentorian they may seem.
As Tommy Vietor said, in reaction to Rufo: “This idiotic bull---- might have been good politics at one point, but I’m confident the pendulum has swung back and people now see these guys as insufferable little tyrants. No one cares about Cracker Barrel, you annoying dork.”
I think Vietor was on to something, briefly. After all, there’s some truth in claiming that “this idiotic bull----” has lost its populist appeal and that, as a result, the pendulum has begun swinging back so that people can now see men like Rufo as the “insufferable little tyrants” they are.
But then an official organ of the Democratic Party decided to get in the way of that pendulum swing by agreeing, and the most immediate implication is that the Democrats themselves are not nearly as liberal or democratic as they seem to be, nor are the “insufferable little tyrants” nearly as insufferable, little or tyrannical as they seem to be.
With that post, the Democrats conceded the fascists have a point.
And the Democrats should never concede anything to fascists.
Before that moment, as Vietor’s comment suggested, there was a bright moral line between the sane and the insane. There was no need to take seriously the delusions that haunt the hobgoblins of the right, and it was clear and obvious that Rufo isn’t interested in the substance of his allegations (whether they are true; whether they are based on something real), only in whether they bring him closer to his goals. And as long as liberals saw this bright moral line, there was no point in searching for good faith in the hobgoblins who have none.
As Tommy Vietor said, “No one cares about Cracker Barrel, you annoying dork.”
But then the official Twitter account of the Democratic Party stepped in. It decided to see good faith where there is none. It decided to give the benefit of the doubt to malicious actors who would never give it in return. And worst of all, that decision took a simple and rational discussion, in which it was clear which side was the sane side, and made it insane. And now, instead of dismissing the hobgoblins, here I am, in today’s edition of the Editorial Board, taking them seriously.
The pattern is everywhere.
The president makes some insane allegation (crime is out of control in Washington, DC!) to advance his fascist agenda under false pretenses (the National Guard commandeered local cops in the name of public safety, despite crime rates being at historic lows).
In response, a centrist Democrat who values his reputation more than his liberty decides to accept as real the insanity (well, crime really is a problem and cancel-culture can’t cancel that!), making himself complicit in advancing a fascist agenda ("Chicago is next and then we'll help with New York,” Donald Trump said), and making everyone insane.
And I don’t see this pattern changing any time soon, not until the dominant faction of the Democratic Party, the one with most of the money and most of the influence on the Washington press corps, understands the party’s majority, that faction without the money and without the influence, is no longer going to tolerate the belief among elite Democrats that it’s better to bargain with evil than to fight it.
To me, this is the true fault line – between those Democrats who look at the president and the Republicans and believe what they see, and those Democrats who look at them both and see what they want to see, because it suits their interests. The rightwing mind is not the only host of hobgoblins. The defenders of “the center” host them, too.
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