On New Year’s a picture of David Perdue throwing up a ‘White Power’ sign together with two guys in ‘Keep America Great’ surfaced on Twitter. To my knowledge, this was the first post it was used in:
There was a lively debate between a “looks real” camp and a “looks photoshopped” camp. At the time, I decided against sharing it on Twitter or here, because I did not want to let my prejudices against Perdue get the best of me. But then, it turned out to be a true photo, orginally posted by a Republican activist on his Facebook page:
A couple of hours later, the guy who took the picture and posted it offered an “explanation”: See, it’s not the ‘White Power’ sign, it’s a sign for the number “3”, because these two guys knocked on approximately 3,000 doors.
Yeah, and a raised middle finger means “You’re my number 1”, right?
The Perdue campaign has not yet made a statement, and I don’t expect they will. But regardless, I don’t think that David Perdue willfully posed for a picture showing him with a ‘White Power’ sign a couple of weeks before a close general elcetion. I think the most likely explanation that somebody told him the 3,000 doors story and told him to signify it this way — whether it was one of the guys in the picture, the photographer or somebody else and he just did it.
But that, to me, is the big problem here. A Senator from Georgia should care about the fact that white supremacy is a thing and a problem for millions of his constituents. A Senator from Georgia should know that white supremacists seek the company of Republican office holders. A Senator from Georgia should know how to spot white supremacists — their signs, their slogans — to be able to avoid them. But Perdue doesn’t know, because he doesn’t care. And that’s one of the reasons he shouldn’t be a Senator from Georgia.
We are on the eve of Election Day. If you have a couple of hours today, please help Georgians to make voting plans for tomorrow. If you can, please chip in a few bucks for Jon Ossoff, Raphael Warnock and some of their key allies in Georgia via ActBlue.