Herschel's Lifestyle Contradicted What He Allegedly Stood For | Opinion

The following is a lightly edited transcript of remarks made by Amani Wells-Onyioha during a Newsweek debate about the senate runoff election results in Georgia. You can listen to the podcast here:

A lot of Republicans in Georgia might be disappointed just because they were hoping that Herschel Walker would be able to align with a lot of their other favorites, like how Ted Cruz was down there stumping for him, and they were hoping to get more of their agenda done, or at least have more of a chance in blocking, or being an obstacle to, at least some of the things that the Democrats were trying to do. It's a small margin, it's a small majority, but at the same time we do have at least the opportunity to have a swifter change be affected in the Senate. At the end of the day, it's only one seat, but I'm glad that it tipped this way.

Herschel Walker blame GOP
Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker delivers his concession speech during an election night event at the College Football Hall of Fame on December 6, 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia. Tonight Walker lost his runoff... Alex Wong/Getty Images

I don't think media coverage of Walker was unfair at all, they were just putting a lens on how the man is. There were so many opportunities where we could hear him speak throughout this campaign trail where a lot of things that came up were just irrelevant, he was going off all tangents about random things, and it didn't seem like he had a major platform or position of his own. Herschel Walker was picked just so that he can go along with whatever it was that the Republicans who have been in an office longer, the Republicans who do have an agenda, have in mind. He was selected because they thought he would be a very easy person who wouldn't have many big opinions of his own, who was just happy to be there and who would just go along with whatever it was that they wanted to do. My main takeaway from Herschel was that he wasn't passionate about anything in any kind of given way, especially because his lifestyle contradicted a lot of things that he allegedly stood for.

Amani Wells-Onyioha is a political organizer and Director of Operations at Sole Strategies.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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Amani Wells-Onyioha


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