Letter to the Editor: Bill Berger

In recent weeks, the AJT has published two opinion pieces from fervent Republican supporters, Dan Israel and Dr. Jeffrey Kunkes, who have urged Georgia Jewish voters to vote for David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in the Georgia Senate runoff elections on Jan. 5. Part of their spiel is that a Republican-controlled Senate would act as a brake on any effort by President-elect Joe Biden to enact what they call the Democratic “radical agenda.”

Aside from the use of this fear tactic, right out of Trump’s playbook, this proposition simply ignores the reality of the makeup of the United States Senate. The 48 current Democratic and Independent senators, unlike the 50 Republican senators, are not a monolithic group. For example, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has already made it clear that he will not go along with any legislation that veers too far to the left. Thus, there is already a brake in place to slow down, if not totally prevent, the enactment of any “Bernie Sanders agenda” as Dr. Kunkes rails against and as Joe Biden has also not endorsed.

On the other hand, giving Republicans control of the Senate will ensure that Senator Mitch McConnell will be able to thwart both President-elect Biden’s choices for his cabinet and other high-level government appointments, which is unprecedented in modern history, and his middle-of-the-road agenda, all in Senator McConnell’s continuing effort to see that Democratic presidents fail. The election of Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to the Senate will take control of our government out of the hands of Senator McConnell and put it back into the hands of the American people who overwhelmingly elected Joe Biden to lead us based on his agenda, not McConnell’s or the Republicans.

Bill Berger, Dunwoody