If you still doubt that progressive politics dominates almost every institution of American public life and culture, you’ve come to the right place in Friday’s Major League Baseball decision to move their summer all-star game out of Atlanta. President Biden said Wednesday he would “strongly support” the idea and the league dutifully committed two days later.
The MLB’s apology is that Georgia’s elected legislature passed and Governor Brian Kemp signed an electoral reform bill that gives the state more choices than Delaware and New York. Better not play games at Yankee Stadium. But the Democrats chose to portray Georgian law as a bill to suppress voters and Jim Crow 2.0 as part of their political strategy to pass their own radical electoral reform in Washington that would repeal 50 state election laws.
Notice how quickly America’s elites have reconciled. First, the media took up the democratic issue and distorted the truth about the law. As CNN put it, the new law “introduces new barriers to voting and reduces the number of dropboxes in heavily African American areas”. Dropboxing was only allowed in Georgia as a temporary measure during the pandemic. The new law allows more Dropboxing than Georgia in 2019, which was zero.
Next came the fleet of CEOs intimidated by political threats. Now comes MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who said in a statement that “Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes ballot box restrictions.” He therefore puts a haughty but distorted patina on the decision to participate in a partisan discussion about the balance between the important values of access to ballot papers and the integrity of the ballot papers.
The league has smeared the elected majority in Georgia as racist and anti-democratic. It has done economic damage to the state, even though we assume Mr. Manfred will have a new friend in the White House. Mr. Biden gives the order and Mr. Manfred greets. Welcome to the Democratic Baseball League.
