January, 1977
It was one of the coldest Presidential Inaugurations on record. January, 1977; the National Mall had wind chills in the zeroes. My place was below the Capitol and I shivered, despite my goose down mountain jacket. I watched the former Governor of Georgia sworn into office. I was one of “the staff”, one of the twenty-somethings who were “feet on the ground” for the Carter-Mondale Presidential Campaign.
I’d spent two months crisscrossing Southwestern Ohio, organizing high school kids and Moms for literature drops in Cincinnati, getting statistics and materials for Warren, Brown, Clermont and Butler Counties, and organizing students to knock on dorm room doors at Miami University in Oxford. There were signs everywhere, and long computer lists on wide paper. We made thousands of phone calls to get folks out to vote. We won Ohio by only a few thousand; at twenty years-old, I thought I talked to every one of them!!
A New Era
Jimmy Carter was President. The Watergate Era was officially over, as Nixon’s replacement Gerald Ford failed to win election. I went from the parade (Jimmy and Rosalyn walked) to get ready for the “Staff Ball” at the DC Armory. I wore my three-piece suit and cowboy boots; stylish for 1977. Jimmy was truly a Georgia man, he was good friends with the Charlie Daniels Band (and even more the Allman Brothers). Daniels played for the inaugural ball. We all danced to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”.
Georgia changed America that day. Jimmy Carter represented a sea-change in American politics. He was a Southern Man, the Governor of a Southern State. His predecessor in Georgia, Lester Maddox, was an “old-style” Southern Democrat. He chased Black people out of his restaurant with an ax handle. But Jimmy was a friend of the civil rights movement. When Carter was sworn into the Governorship, he called for the end of racial discrimination. He was a new kind of Southern politician, a man who spoke of human rights.
1976 in Georgia marked a pivotal change in American politics. And last night, Georgia was leading again.
Perfect Call
We all listened to the entire conversation, recorded by Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The President of the United States was demanding more votes, threatening Georgia authorities. His meaning was crystal clear: alter the Georgia vote count so that Donald Trump wins, no matter what the actual votes were. While by then we were well aware that Trump didn’t follow the established “norms” of the Presidency; as Americans listened to the call, most of us were thinking the same thing: this has to be illegal.
Last night, Atlanta’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis answered the question with a resounding “YES, it was illegal”. In a ninety-one page, forty-one count indictment of nineteen named defendants, DA Willis called Donald Trump the leader of a criminal conspiracy, in violation of Georgia’s “RICO” (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization) statute. It’s the same law used to bring down organized crime; the Mafia and drug cartels.
Time to Dance
Federal Special Prosecutor Jack Smith indicted Trump two weeks ago in a tight, targeted case for attempting to obstruct and delay the Presidential transition of power. While there were seven conspirators, Smith only indicted Trump himself in that action. The prosecution is designed to quickly bring the former President to trial, before the 2024 election and maybe even before the nominating convention.
While Smith was tight and targeted, Willis’s indictment was broad. She indicted all of those involved, from Trump to Giuliani to Meadows to the Georgia Republicans who signed on as “fake electors”. She is bringing the entire conspiracy to obstruct the election to Georgia, in a case where nineteen defendants will try to avoid the mandatory minimum five-year sentence attached to the RICO charges.
Willis is not encumbered with the time constraints facing Jack Smith. Smith needs to conclude his trial before September, 2024, before the Justice Department mandated window of sixty days prior to the election. And, Smith knows well, that if Trump or an ally is elected President in 2024, his case might well disappear. Willis, on the other hand, has time. While the election is important, there is no mandate to skirt around the campaigns. She’s not likely to try all nineteen at once, in fact, I’m sure she expects that several of them will “flip” and plead-out well before trial. But when it all “comes down”, Willis has the luxury of time that Smith cannot depend upon.
Soul to Save
Smith and Willis have different goals. Smith is trying to hold Trump personally accountable for his actions, to let the Nation see that justice applies to all. Willis, on the other hand, is trying to tell the entire story. She wants America to know that it wasn’t just bumbling “hacks” trying to somehow deflect the will of the people with hair dye running down their face. It was organized, it was real, it was a determined attempt to change an American election, and short-circuit the United States Constitution.
Smith wants Trump, his “Devil”. Willis has invited the “Devil” and the entire structure of Hell with him down to Georgia. What’s at stake? “Only” the soul of the United States.
