The Daily Fuckup

Donald Trump came to Perry, Georgia, on Sept. 25, 2021, to do what he has done repeatedly since losing the White House: reopen the 2020 election fight and keep pressure on the Republicans who refused to help him overturn it. Gov. Brian Kemp was squarely in the crosshairs. Trump has attacked Kemp for months over the governor’s refusal to go along with Trump’s false claims of fraud and his effort to reverse Joe Biden’s narrow win in Georgia. But the rally also gave Kemp and his allies something they could use immediately: a public example of Trump choosing grievance over governing and scorekeeping over party unity. ([kold.com](https://www.kold.com/2021/09/26/georgia-rally-marks-debut-gop-primary-trump-ticket/?utm_source=openai))

That matters in Georgia because the state GOP has spent much of 2021 trying to sort out how much Trump remains an asset and how much he is still a liability. At the Perry rally, Trump did not limit himself to praising loyalists or talking about the next election. He revisited the same baseless fraud claims, and he made clear his hostility toward Kemp. Trump’s supporters may enjoy that fight. For Kemp’s camp, though, the event offered a cleaner argument: the former president was still campaigning against a settled result while elected Republicans were trying to focus on the next round of races. ([kold.com](https://www.kold.com/2021/09/26/georgia-rally-marks-debut-gop-primary-trump-ticket/?utm_source=openai))

Kemp did not need to beat Trump onstage for the rally to help him politically. He only needed to look like the sitting governor doing the ordinary job of one: governing a state, defending his record and refusing to play along with a political fantasy. That contrast is useful in a state where Republicans have to win suburban voters, business conservatives and enough independents to survive close statewide contests. Trump’s rally did not erase the split inside the party, but it did hand Kemp’s allies a simple rebuttal: the former president was still relitigating the last loss while Georgia Republicans were supposed to be looking ahead. ([wabe.org](https://www.wabe.org/supporters-of-gov-kemp-counterattack-after-trump-rally-in-georgia/?utm_source=openai))

The rally also showed why Trump remains powerful even when he is undercutting his own side. He can still force the party to react, still dominate the conversation and still turn a campaign event into a loyalty test. In Georgia, that kind of politics has a cost. It keeps the focus on the 2020 defeat, it invites intraparty blowups and it gives Kemp’s defenders a ready-made case that Trump is more interested in punishment than in building a statewide coalition. That may fire up the most committed Trump voters. It also gives Republicans who want distance from the former president a fresh opening to say the party cannot keep living inside his grievances and expect to keep winning in a closely divided state. ([wabe.org](https://www.wabe.org/supporters-of-gov-kemp-counterattack-after-trump-rally-in-georgia/?utm_source=openai))