Some GOP hopefuls talk ‘treason’

If Georgia’s Republicans insist on a politics that is base and ugly and plays to the hateful side of the state’s history, then they deserve to be called out for it.

Since several of the GOP’s candidates for governor have flirted with support for secession, they deserve the scorching denunciation they received earlier this week from David Poythress, a Democratic candidate for governor.

“Four of the six Republican candidates recently said they would support Georgia seceding from the United States of America.

“This is outrageous. This is disgraceful.

“It’s a slap in the face to every patriotic American —- to anybody who has served under the American flag and to those brave Georgians who have fought and died for our country in Iraq,” Poythress, retired adjutant general of the Georgia National Guard, said in a video posted to his campaign Web site on Memorial Day.

It was bad enough when the GOP-dominated Georgia Senate passed a resolution on April 1 that, among other outlandish notions, declared that the U.S. Constitution would be rendered null and void and the United States considered disbanded if Congress, the federal courts or the president take any action that exceeds their constitutional authority (as determined, no doubt, by the Georgia General Assembly). The resolution passed by a vote of 43-1.

At least they had an excuse for that bit of seditious nonsense. It was, as Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Jay Bookman noted when he criticized the curious exercise, the “39th day of the 40-day legislative session,” and “most [senators] did not have an opportunity to read the six-page resolution,” which its sponsors billed as a resolution endorsing “states’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.”

But several Republican gubernatorial candidates had the opportunity to run away —- or at least backtrack —- from that odious resolution later.

Instead, when asked about it by Savannah Morning News reporter Larry Peterson, four of them —- Eric Johnson, John Oxendine, Karen Handel and Ray McBerry —- embraced it. State Rep. Austin Scott had the good sense to oppose the resolution. (U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal didn’t respond to queries.)

Oxendine, insurance commissioner, was particularly enthusiastic. He had earlier indicated his support for secession talk from Texas’ GOP governor, Rick Perry.

All this talk of secession from the GOP is nothing but race-baiting, a shameful “dog whistle” meant to be heard by voters still unhappy about the broad cultural changes wrought by the civil rights movement.

Similar resolutions have cropped up in other state legislatures, and a couple have passed them. That means this particular whistle has been loud enough and long enough for all of us to hear it.

Don’t think for one moment that the election last year of the nation’s first black president, Barack Obama, is coincidental to this sudden renewed interest in “states’ rights” and secession, loaded terms with a visceral connection to the centuries-long oppression of black Americans.

Georgia’s Senate resolution even resurrected the dubious legal strategy of “nullification” of federal laws, which segregationists used to defy desegregation of schools and public facilities in the 1960s.

Of course, Republican leaders grow apoplectic when they are accused of race-baiting or replaying the Southern strategy of appeals to a certain demographic. (Yes, black senators also voted for the resolution suggesting that Georgia secede if Congress passes a law that Georgians don’t like.)

They would point out, no doubt, that the resolution specifically allows Congress to ban slavery.

So, let’s set aside the race-baiting aspect and simply note that the rhetoric in the resolution is the sort of thing that might easily get an immigrant locked away without benefit of a lawyer. The Patriot Act has been invoked for lesser offenses.

If these were Democrats invoking such rhetoric, some Republican would dare call it treason.

Cynthia Tucker, an Opinion columnist, writes Wednesdays and Sundays. Reach her at cynthia@ajc.com.