Journey through the ‘swing states’ #3: Georgia, from the extermination of the natives to Trump’s famous phone call
Georgia presents us with something of a fusion of the dominant characteristics of the two states we discussed earlier in this series. Like Arizona, it has a capital with a huge preponderance over the state: 57% of the population lives in the Atlanta metropolitan region, one of the largest in the United States. Also like Arizona, its largest ethnic minority represents 31% of the population, but in this case they are African Americans. Not that there aren’t also a lot of Latinos (10%). It is, in fact, considered the 9th most ethnically diverse state in the country and, among the swing states, It is only behind Nevada, which we will discuss later.
Like North Carolina, Georgia has a long history in the Union. It is also a founding state, with a complex history of race relations, active participation in the Confederacy and in the segregationist movement and a very inelastic white electorate (at least the native one). By having these similarities, there are many justifications for demographic and political dynamics that I do not need to repeat. But don’t worry, there is a lot to say about the only battlefield in the Deep South, a region that is difficult to define culturally, but whose definition has a simple rule: the seven states that founded the Confederate States of America. Georgia is joined by South Carolina (the first), Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida and Texas.
