Running Out of Bounds
Against voting for Herschel Walker.
Photo: Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Georgia Politics
What a week it was in Georgia politics.
As I’m sure everybody reading this is aware, there are some pretty important elections taking place in Georgia this November. While the gubernatorial election between current Republican governor Brian Kemp and Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams will likely impact Georgians more directly, the Senate race between Republican Herschel Walker and Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock will be more decisive for national politics.
A few months ago I wrote about the primary results for the various elections held earlier this year. In the piece, I wrote about why I believe Brian Kemp has been a solid, conservative governor and will get my vote in November despite not getting it in 2018. At the same time, I mentioned Herschel Walker only to acknowledge that he won his primary due to his enormous name ID across the state. Today’s newsletter is dedicated solely to Walker and why I will not be voting for him in November.
First, it should be known that I did not vote for Herschel Walker in the Republican primary. It wasn’t that I was principally opposed to Walker as much as I thought there were other more proven conservatives running. Also, I thought that Walker was too much of a wildcard to trust in a general election against a practiced politician like Warnock.
Since the primary ended, I have been on the fence about whether I was going to vote for Walker in November or not. In my opinion, he has not done a good enough job of laying out a conservative platform to give me confidence that he will seek to enact conservative policies once he gets to Washington. I also don’t like voting for people who have never held public office as I believe experience is important in understanding how the process works. With that said, I understood conservatives who supported Walker anyways in order to prevent a Democratic-controlled Senate.
After this week, I no longer believe that.
What Happened?
Earlier this week, The Daily Beast reported that Herschel Walker impregnated a woman, pressured that woman to have an abortion, and ultimately paid for the abortion to be performed back in 2009. This understandably made waves since Walker has taken a hard stance against abortion as a Senate candidate.
According to the report itself and after the report was published, Herschel Walker denied that he had ever done such a thing and continues to deny the allegation. In fact, Walker called it a “flat-out lie” and threatened to sue The Daily Beast for its report.
While it may seem like this is a classic hit piece from the liberal media, I believe the report is credible for several reasons. First, The Daily Beast report is based off the testimony of a woman who asked for anoynomity but allegedly supplied a receipt from an abortion clinic along with a get well soon card from Walker. That specific information is easily verifable and The Daily Beast would not include it if they could not produce evidence. Furthermore, The Daily Beast corroborated the story with a friend of the woman who claimed to take care of her while she was recovering from the procedure. In other words, the report is well sourced and thoroughly backed up.
On the other side, Walker’s denial does not sufficiently justify questioning the validity of the report. Walker said that he was going to sue The Daily Beast the following morning for defamation; he hasn’t filed such a suit according to AJC. If the report was false, Walker suing The Daily Beast would be completely understandable as it has certainly damaged his reputation. Due to the nature of a campaign and the looming election date, there would be absolutely no delay in filing such a motion if the report were false. So, why hasn’t Walker made any legal action like he claimed he would?
Things got worse for Walker’s claims when his politically vocal son, Christian Walker, took to Twitter to call his father out for lying.
Christian is not a wayward liberal son either. He is a staunch MAGA-republican who has been decidedly anti-Woke and anti-Left since he has risen to prominence. He is also a vocal supporter of other Republican candidates such as Ron DeSantis.
It would be in Christian’s self-interest to defend his father against the accusations as Herschel is backed by Donald Trump and Christian’s audience largely consists of Trump/Herschel supporters. Nonetheless, Christian is criticizing his father against his own self-interest; I believe this makes his testimoney very reliable.
So What?
With all of that said, there are many lying, hypocritical politicians. Why do I believe this rises to the level of advocating against voting for Herschel Walker?
To start, I need to lay out my a priori assumptions that lead to my ultimate conclusion of being against Walker. If you disagree with my assumptions, then you will almost certainly disagree with my ultimate conclusion. If you agree with my assumptions, then I want to make the case that you should also be against voting for Herschel Walker.
My first assumption is that the allegation of Walker paying for a woman to have an abortion is true. I think the report is credible enough to believe and the defense presented by Walker hasn’t been sufficient enough to convince me that it is untrue.
My second assumption is that abortion is a line in the sand that can’t be crossed as a Christian. Abortion is murder and I cannot/will not support any candidate that does not oppose it. This is why I have never and will never vote for a Democrat as long the party continues to support abortion. I could agree with every other policy that a politician believes in and enacts, but if that politician refuses to be against abortion, then it disqualifies them for my vote.
There are many people, even conservatives, that disagree with my hardline against any politician that doesn’t oppose abortion, but I believe that abortion is such an injustice that it is single-handedly disqualifying. Like a candidate that was an overt and proud white supremacist, there are just some stances that are so seriously immoral that they can’t be looked over or ignored.
Let’s get back to Herschel Walker. Walker said that he is against abortion and has even alluded to a hardline stance that has “no exceptions.” Yet, his actions make his words ring hollow. I simply don’t believe someone that says he is against abortion but has paid for a woman to have an abortion.
Are people not allowed to make a mistake and change their mind? They absolutely are, but that would require some level of repentance or expression of regret over their mistake. By denying that he ever paid for the abortion, Walker has demonstrated that he would rather lie than repent. That makes him no better than a politician who paid a hitman to kill someone for him and lied about it when he was caught.
“But Raphael Warnock wants to use tax dollars to pay for many abortions.” I have heard this used as if it justifies voting for Walker. For example, here is conservative radio host Dana Loesch saying this very thing:
Call me crazy but I don’t find “he is only responsible for killing one person, not multiple people” as a good enough reason to vote for somebody. I think it simply disqualifies both.
Which brings me to my last point: being pro-life is more important than being Republican. The potential for Republicans to take control of the Senate if Walker wins in Georgia does not justify ignoring my pro-life convictions. I believe protecting the life of the most vulnerable people in society is more important than stopping whatever policies Democrats seek to implement, even those that I believe are detrimental to the country.
My pro-life convictions simply won’t allow me to vote for Herschel Walker in November; I hope that my fellow pro-life Georgians will refuse to give him theirs as well. Pro-lifers can’t expect politicians to ever take opposition to abortion serious until pro-lifers take it serious and refuse to vote for “the lesser of two evils.” Don’t vote for Senate or write in another candidate, but don’t vote for either Warnock or Walker.
God Bless,
Hunter Burnett
thanks for keeping me informed!!