Major League Baseball has decided to pull its July All Star game and player draft out of Atlanta over Georgia Republicans’ need to slap ankle chains on Georgia voters of a certain complexion and political leaning. Why, they handed Georgia’s 2020 electoral votes and its two U.S. Senate seats to Democrats!
The “I’ll show you!” caucus of Georgia overseers means to show somebody who’s boss, dammit. These private businesses standing behind civil rights are just defying the natural order!
“Somebody git me an axe handle!” Georgia’s current governor might have said (New York Times):
Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia on Saturday issued a blistering critique of Major League Baseball’s decision to pull its All-Star Game out of the state over the new law there restricting voting, arguing that the move would deliver an economic hit to Georgians.
Mr. Kemp, a Republican, framed the battle over voting rights in Georgia as a wholly partisan one concocted by Democrats, rather than a civil rights effort to protect access to the ballot as Republicans try to place new limits on voting across the country.
“Yesterday, Major League Baseball caved to fear and lies from liberal activists,” Mr. Kemp said at a news conference, flanked by the state’s Republican attorney general, G.O.P. members of the legislature and grass-roots activists. “In the middle of a pandemic, Major League Baseball put the wishes of Stacey Abrams and Joe Biden ahead of the economic well-being of hard-working Georgians who were counting on the All-Star Game for a paycheck.”
Liberal agitators! Nobody but your tribe is buying your spin, Brian.
They have a sense of history in Georgia. Old times there are not forgotten. Just recent history. This was North Carolina in September almost five years ago:
The NCAA announced Monday evening it would pull seven championship tournament games out of North Carolina because of a controversial state law that critics say is discriminatory to the LGBT community.
“Based on the NCAA’s commitment to fairness and inclusion, the Association will relocate all seven previously awarded championship events from North Carolina during the 2016-17 academic year,” the NCAA said in a statement.
The organization said “current North Carolina state laws” don’t align with its commitment to “promote an inclusive atmosphere for all college athletes, coaches, administrators and fans.”
Months later, in February 2017:
The NCAA might move all championship events through 2022 out of North Carolina if the state doesn’t repeal its “bathroom bill,” the North Carolina Sports Association says in a letter sent to state legislators.
“Our contacts at the NCAA tell us that, due to their stance on HB2, all North Carolina bids will be pulled from the review process and removed from consideration,” said the letter from Scott Dupree, executive director of the Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance, on behalf of the association.
The state could suffer “upwards of a half-billion dollars” in negative economic impact, the letter said. Counting NCAA events already moved to other states, “we will be faced with a six-year drought of NCAA championships in North Carolina,” the letter said.
Newsweek published a list of sports leagues, entertainment figures, and businesses boycotting North Carolina over its “bathroom bill.” The Associated Press projected the total cost of the boycotts to North Carolina at $3.76 billion. North Carolina eventually issued an ambiguous repeal.
UPDATE: Texas is also slow on the uptake.