What's going on in Georgia?

 Yesterday’s note on “Election Day in Georgia” prompted some questions. I think this might help in understanding what’s going on:

• Atlanta and the surrounding suburbs are far more diverse than most people imagine. Dekalb County, my new home, is 54 percent Black. People who identify as non-Hispanic white make up 29 percent of the population. People of all colors are moving into this area. It’s a big county — about 750,000 residents — and it’s growing rapidly. The number of voters of all colors is increasing rapidly. 

• Marjorie Taylor Greene and kindred spirits have made some parts of Georgia infamous as bastions of right-wing populism. Her seat, the 14^th Congressional District, includes 11 counties, at least in part. She won her last election with almost 170,000 votes. By comparison, in the county where I live, Raphael Warnock defeated Herschel Walker by more than 200,000 votes. Warnock’s margin of victory in just one county was more than the total number cast for Greene across her entire district. Greene gets a lot of attention, but those who are paying attention are apt to confuse which force in in state politics is the big dog and which is the tail being wagged.

• I’m new, but it seems to me that the growth of Atlanta and surrounding counties is remarkable for its diversity. William H. Frey, a scholar with The Brookings Institute, recently published a report that suggested we’re seeing a “New Great Migration” of Black Americans to the South. Here’s his nut graf, as they say in the news business:

The reversal of the Great Migration began as a trickle in the 1970s, increased in the 1990s, and turned into a virtual evacuation from many northern areas in subsequent decades. The movement is largely driven by younger, college-educated Black Americans, from northern and western places of origin.

Atlanta is the prime example. I think what we’re seeing is a remarkable social and cultural trend. That trend has political implications, as yesterday’s election showed.

• Source: William H. Frey, “A ‘New Great Migration’ is bringing Black Americans Back to the South”; The Brookings Institute, Sept. 22, 2022.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/a-new-great-migration-is-bringing-black-americans-back-to-the-south/