Welcome to what is the 922nd original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing the sitting U.S. Senator from Georgia, David Perdue, who was first elected to office back in the 2014 elections, based on his resume of being the CEO of a variety of companies through the years including Sara Lee, Haggar Clothing, Reebok, and Dollar General, as well as being the cousin of former Georgia Governor (and Trump administration Secretary of Agriculture) Sonny Perdue. Ah, nothing more Republican than corporate elitism combined with nepotism… well, that if you add the fact that his business record includes investors suing companies he worked for because they were misreporting profits, times he took a golden parachute while a company filed for bankruptcy (both with Dollar General), and laying off workers and/or outsourcing jobs (pretty much everywhere else). It was not until May of 2020, when the media scrutinized his stock portfolio and how it was handled as the Senate was informed of the Covid-19 pandemic looming that he announced his financial advisors would no longer be buying and selling individual stocks… because of course no one with a career as a shady CEO would look to enrich themselves during a viral outbreak. The only reason he wasn’t scrutinized more is because Georgia’s other senator is Kelly Loeffler, who was even more brazen in trying to profit off of coronavirus.
But while his track record of letting greed motivate him is troubling enough, David Perdue has given us more then enough reason through the years to be concerned that he isn’t a bigoted fascist. We first really focused on him as a potential candidate for a CSGOPOTD profile back in June of 2016 when at that year’s Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference, he quoted scripture to make a “joke” about President Obama, quoting Psalms 109:8 and saying, “let his days be few”.
Ah, the Christian value of praying for the death of your political foes. Classy.
As a legislator, David Perdue has voted almost exclusively along party lines in the Senate, rubber-stamping every member of Donald Trump’s “Cabinet of Horrors” through, giving a free pass to every judicial nominee, including accused rapist Brett Kavanaugh, and voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act among the rare moments where Mitch McConnell has actually allowed a vote to the floor. He sponsored anti-immigration legislation that would not prevent illegal immigration as much as reduce the amount of people legally allowed to emigrate into the United States, because as we’re about to cover… Perdue’s got a bit of a track record for doing racist things in terms of policy, and looking the other way when they happen in reality.
And it’s just about two years from that point that Donald Trump tweeted out a video of some of his supporters in Florida yelling, “WHITE POWER!” that Perdue refused to comment on. Y’know, just coincidentally. Which shouldn’t come as a surprise, as Sen. Perdue developed amnesia about Donald Trump calling Haiti and African nations “s***hole countries” even though he was present in the room when it happened, and then only remembered it a few weeks later when his feet were held to the fire about it.
Maybe it’s better that he wasn’t facing the media to comment, after all, we’re talking about the same David Perdue who in 2018 was being filmed while campaigning for current Georgia Governor (by way of voter suppression and kicking Democratic voters off the ballot) Brian Kemp by a student with their cell phone. And Perdue lost his cool and snatched the student’s phone out of his hand and away from them. Which is, y’know, not normal behavior for a member of the U.S. Senate.
Recent headlines from the 2020 election, now that Perdue is up for re-election, have not done a lot to shake the image that maybe he’s got some serious problems with people of other races or religions, as his campaign opened up against his Democratic challenger, Jon Ossoff, by going “all-in” on anti-Semitic tropes. The first ad released enlarged Ossoff’s nose in both length and width (interesting choice of photoshop there, Dave), and then the campaign followed by releasing an add of Ossoff standing with Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate Minority Leader who just so happens to be Jewish with the caption that Democrats are trying to “buy Georgia”. Perdue ordered his people to pull the ads after facing criticism and claimed it was an “inadvertent error” and not that he was employing people cribbing notes from Joseph Goebbels, which is what it was looking like.
And it looks like David Perdue is scared for a reason, as polls have begun to show the race in a virtual tie, with Jon Ossoff surging ahead as early voting begins. Perhaps, mercifully, November 3rd will give us an outcome where David Perdue ends up a one-term senator, and a man with the interest of the people in mind, rather than a CEO’s bank account will be in place.
Daring to dream.
One Year Ago, October 3rd, 2019: Tom Braund (AK)
Two Years Ago, October 3rd, 2018: Jan Morgan (AR)… 2018 Update
Three Years Ago, October 3rd, 2017: Jeff Sessions (AL)… 2017 Update
Four Years Ago, October 3rd, 2016: Jeff Sessions (AL)… Original Profile
Five Years Ago, October 3rd, 2015: John Boehner (OH)
Six Years Ago, October 3rd, 2014: Joshua Black (FL)