Ready for Some Good Trouble?
A little before 2 a.m. Pacific Time today, as many of us exhausted Americans blearily refreshed our polling news website of choice for the millionth time, the voting tally from Georgia finally flipped from red to blue — Biden scraped ahead of Trump with a slim margin of 917 votes statewide. The narrow lead brought the former vice president closer to victory in one of the most tumultuous presidential elections this country has witnessed. (Mad props here to all the poll workers and state and county officials slogging night and day to get every voted counted!)
It seemed fitting that it was vote counts from Clayton County — part of the district that was once represented by the late US representative and civil rights icon John Lewis — that tipped Georgia toward Biden. Rep. John Lewis, who passed earlier this year, had devoted his life to racial justice and equality and was a huge voting rights advocate as well. The huge blue turnout was, of course, thanks to years of grassroots efforts among communities of color by voting rights advocates.
Georgia's transformation from a Republican stronghold to a swing state has been driven by population growth and increasing diversity in the Atlanta metropolitan region, of which Clayton County is a part. In fact, we are witnessing this correlation between diversity and change from red to blue in just about every part of the country — Georgia, Philadelphia, Arizona, Nevada — that is key to this presidential election.
This swing also corresponds with a growing concern about the environment among folks living in these areas, especially climate change, which we already know was a key election issue. A 2019 Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll showed that nearly two-thirds of Georgia voters believe the US should do more to combat climate change.
A Biden presidency, which seems likely right now, would give environmentalists a fighting chance to get working on that. No doubt it’s going to be a grind, much like this election is turning out to be. So let’s get ready for the long game. And to get in what Lewis called, “good trouble, necessary trouble."
Maureen Nandini Mitra
Editor, Earth Island Journal
Banner image: Natalia Medd
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