Cancel Culture Gone Amok: Governor Brian Kemp Was Shouted Down by His Own People

Gov. Brian Kemp, Official Photo

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a conservative Republican, was almost booed off the stage when he spoke yesterday at the Georgia Republican Party’s state convention, held at a resort on one of the state’s beautiful coastal islands.

He was booed by his own people. This signifies a radical turn toward increasing political polarization. Polarization means that you have fewer supporters, but your supporters are more fanatical. Absolute loyalty to Trump is becoming a Republican Party requirement. 

I have written earlier about terrible instances in which conservative rabble-rousers have chased liberal speakers off the stage, or liberals have shouted conservative speakers off the stage. What happened yesterday was different. Brian Kemp is a radical conservative whose policy positions should satisfy anyone who opposes abortion, government-financed health care, or basic pandemic precautions. Indeed, he got his biggest cheers when he reminded the audience that Georgia was the first state to reopen during the pandemic.

Earlier Post: Liberals Shouted Down Milo Yiannopoulos

Earlier Post: Milo Yiannopoulos Helped to Shout Down a Liberal Speaker

Kemp, however, made one enormous political mistake. He honestly certified the obviously accurate election results that gave Georgia’s electoral votes to Joe Biden. We all know that former President Donald Trump and his supporters have constantly and wrongly accused Georgia of mis-counting the votes. Trump’s false claim that he won the election has become the test for loyal Republicans across the country. 

During his speech, Kemp reminded his noisy audience about Georgia’s restrictive abortion laws. “We passed heartbeat legislation,” he explained. But a heckler immediately shouted, “Boo! What about the voting machines?” He reminded the crowd that he opposed critical race theory and vaccine passports. That kind of ignorance should have pleased them. Apparently it didn’t.

Kemp’s failure – his inability even to be heard at his own convention – tells us several things about Georgia’s Republican leadership:

First, it’s not all about the issues. Kemp reminded the crowd that he was rabidly conservative on every possible issue. So what? It seems that, to many in the Georgia Republican Party’s leadership today, it is all about Trump – and nothing else. If you are not 100% pro-Trump, nothing else matters.

Second, the Republican Party is becoming a house divided, a party polarized within itself. It’s not just that Republicans are polarized against Democrats. Moderate Republicans are polarized from conservative Republicans. Republicans like Kemp, who are conservative but even marginally honest, are polarized from Trump Republicans. For example, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who is running for re-election, wasn't even invited to the convention. Instead, appallingly, the convention censured him for certifying the 2020 election. 

The people who attended the Republican state convention were, pretty much by definition, the most dedicated party loyalists. They were not necessarily typical of all Republican voters. They were, however, the leadership. Photographs and video showed that the crowd was almost all-white and coronavirus masks were nowhere to be seen. And, although the audience included many Kemp supporters, they could not control the pro-Trump fanatics.

Earlier Post: Trump and the Maskless Crowd  

It didn't help that Trump has been roundly condemning Kemp every chance he gets. Some conventioneers cheered Kemp even as others booed him. Will Kemp's political career survive the onslaught? Time will tell. 

Polarization is a standard tactic of radical rhetoric. The idea is that you will have fewer supporters, but your supporters will be more dedicated. As the Republican Party systematically expels all but its most radical members, it also shrinks its voting base. Thus, it might lose any honest election. The booing crowd’s entire point was that they didn’t want an honest election. They seemed to feel that it was the governor’s job to certify a Trump victory regardless of the actual votes. Kemp explained to the crowd that the law and the Constitution required him to certify the votes. That misses the point. The conventioneers who booed Kemp showed no concern about either the law or the Constitution.

A polarized minority of the electorate cannot persuade a majority of the voters. However, many in the crowd rejected Kemp because their main goal, at this point, was to prevent honest election counting. And that, dear readers, is how a polarized minority can win elections.

No one can dispute Kemp’s conservative credentials. His conservative credentials made no difference. The anti-Kemp crowd at Jekyll Island wasn’t thinking about issues. They were thinking about power.


Earlier Post: Trump's Polarizing Rally in Kentucky: It's All About Getting People to Vote 


Technical note: the best source for people who want to understand radical rhetoric is still The Rhetoric of Agitation and Control by Bowers, Ochs, and Schulz. 

Chapter 4 of my book about the 1896 presidential campaign shows how the Democratic candidate's radical rhetoric helped him win the nomination but doomed him in the general election. Could the same happen to Republicans in upcoming elections? I would not be surprised.