Deborah Gonzalez is a civil rights leader, and I was proud when she served as our District Attorney in Athens-Clarke County. Anyone who knows me will acknowledge my bias, and so should you. I joined her campaign late as a communications consultant, but I’ve been with her since she was elected. In fact, as Deputy Vice Chair in Asia-Pacific for Democrats Abroad while living in Vietnam, I helped her get elected. Did you know that votes from abroad won Biden and Warnock’s election in Georgia? When Deborah entered the Georgia state legislature, it was a white man's world, apart from the gerrymandered Black districts and urban areas that could produce Democrats of every stripe. One of my favorite rationales is when people say, “I loved her as a rep but as a DA…” Let me finish that sentence for you, “…she just didn’t put enough people in jail fast enough.” 

She came into office during a year that some of her unreconstructed Democrat peers called the "year for identity politics," introducing us to figures like Fani Willis and dozens of women of color. As a Latina, she is a minority among minorities in Georgia Democratic politics, especially considering the historically low voter turnout among Latino and Hispanic voters in the state.

Deborah Gonzales was more than a DA in Athens-Clarke County. We hope her community outreach, diversion programs, addiction treatment, and rehabilitation initiatives continue under Republican-backed DA-elect Kalki Yalamanchili. He has been active in churches and neighborhoods, so we also hope he has learned a lot about what working poor and predominantly Black and Brown neighbors in our county need in terms of opportunity and resources to address issues that every nonprofit in this town has cited as "wicked problems" requiring coordination with government to succeed. Deborah met with organizers, nonprofits, and community members to create a collaborative environment.

Her values were what people voted for initially, and they represent what the most impacted community members wanted her progressive policies to address again. We didn’t listen. Social class, a finely tuned right-wing messaging campaign backed by $400,000 in MAGA money, and obstruction at every turn from day one across the calcified criminal justice system failed our Democratic DA. It was a compelling message—competency. It's scary, especially when you invoke a two-word phrase like "victim's rights." What does that mean? It doesn’t matter—we all know where we stand on it. It takes paragraphs to refute, and in this election, facts were in short supply, which is how we got Trump.

Democrats need to look in the mirror. We are also susceptible to psych ops, propaganda, and coded messaging. It plays to our egos as elites—our Achilles heel—logic. Nothing makes bourgeois bohemian limousine liberals abandon their socialist principles and anti-racist book clubs faster than actual Black people and actual poor people.

Something struck me about the Boulevard area of my adopted hometown (I moved here from New Orleans at age 14 in 1989) –the people who originally owned those antebellum homes were probably also Democrats. I’d hate to leave out Five Points, which managed to have Houston Gaines and Harris signs in the same yard. Now, that’s not to say there aren’t good people on both sides...

After days and weeks of speaking with people in our most vulnerable neighborhoods, I heard that they loved our DA. I’d say, “Deborah Gonzalez. OK, let’s do a word cloud.” What I heard was “ending mass incarceration,” “rehabilitation,” and “addiction treatment.” Her vision, mission, and values were reaching the people she set out to serve.And let's please be honest— without Black voters, there is no Democratic Party in the South—rural or urban. Do you want their vote? What have you done lately? All you had to do as a Democrat in Clarke County was vote for the Democrat.

Our Democratic Mayor, Kelly Girtz, a man I respect, enabled a permission structure that allowed white upper-middle-class liberals, the donor class, to pretend they were following logic.He was wrong for that. "It's science! Just listen to what the public defenders are saying!" Did defenders ever love prosecutors? “The cottage industry of firms that profit from marijuana arrests is livid! The people who benefit from the incarceration industry say she's incompetent!” What they mean is she didn't put enough Black and Brown people in jail, even though the crime rate was down, she handled a historic post-covid caseload, and she knocked the Laken Riley case out of the park.

Oh, you're for the death penalty? I'm not. Catholics aren't generally. Civil libertarians sure aren't either—even if they are Republicans. And our DA's take on that should not have been a surprise, given who we know she is. Over 60% of Democrats are against the death penalty, and Athens is over 70% Democratic. So, she was right on the mark for that. Values.

Values are why we made Deborah Gonzalez our DA, but survival is why most of her supporters stuck with her this time. Everyone who didn’t isn’t worried about survival, I could guess.You can feel sad about the election, but all change starts within. Let’s reflect a bit more on how our theories connect to practice.We will find out soon who Kalki is. He’s affable, well-read, and cozy with the Republican donor class. However, George W. Bush had at least two of those qualities. He says he will follow the law. I believe he will. But it remains to be seen if he will represent us.

Gregory C.F. Dolezal

Athens