THE WASHINGTON POST MAGAZINE 25Such performances have alarmed some Republican leaders,
who don’t want to squander the opportunity to take back the
seat held by Warnock. Walker “doesn’t have the breadth and
depth of knowledge of the issues,” says Marci McCarthy, chair of
the DeKalb County Republican Party, emphasizing the need for
a qualified individual. “They need to know policy, our top issues
in the state.”
In a December interview, Walker showed he clearly didn’t
know policy or history when asked about the John Lewis Voting
Rights Advancement Act. The legislation would restore parts of
the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which Lewis, a civil rights icon
and congressman — not a senator — from Georgia, helped craft.
“You know Senator Lewis was one of the greatest senators
there’s ever been and for African Americans was absolutely
incredible,” Walker said. “I think, then, to throw his name on a
bill for voting rights, I think, is a shame. First of all, when you
look at the bill, it doesn’t fit what John Lewis stood for, and I
think that is sad for them to do this to him.”
Walker’s flagrant display of ignorance rankled many, includ-
ing Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund,
intended to mobilize and empower Black voters. “There’s no
crime in being ignorant,” Albright says, “but there is in not
knowing you’re ignorant and going around boasting about what
you don’t know. He’s a clear and present danger to our health
and democracy.”I
n October 1989, the Dallas Cowboys traded Walker to the
Minnesota Vikings for five players and seven draft picks,
perhaps the most lopsided and worst trade in NFL history.
Nearly two years later, Walker had failed to meet the impossible
expectations in Minnesota, and his football future looked
uncertain. In May 1991 his wife, Cindy, found him unconscious,
slumped in his car, the engine running, the garage doors closed.
She called 911. After Walker was taken to the hospital, treated
and released, he told reporters he had been listening to some
music and fell asleep, that he was not suicidal.
Around that time, as he explained to Howard Stern in an
interview in 2010, he started playing Russian roulette, seated in
the kitchen of his suburban Dallas home, loading a solitary
bullet in a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson, spinning the chamber,congressional hearing in 2021 against reparations for slavery.
He maintains that racism is a relic of the past, telling the
congressional committee, “Slavery ended over 130 years ago,”
and telling Glenn Beck in an interview the year before, “Racism
is going back to the old days.”
“This is a person who has run away from issues of race and has
not dealt with them,” says Kevin Harris, former executive director
of the Congressional Black Caucus. “If you are Herschel Walker
and don’t understand how the racists are using you to give cover
to their racism, then you are not qualified to serve in the U.S.
Senate at this time.”
As such, in the general election against Warnock — a liberal
champion of civil rights who inherited the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr.’s pulpit at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta —
Walker is not expected to curry many votes from Black residents,
who make up nearly a third of voters in the state and are
predominantly Democrats. He might not even carry Wrightsville.
Walker “expresses too many views supportive of the past
president,” says Curtis Dixon, a former neighbor who taught
Walker world history in 10th grade and coached football. “He
doesn’t have his finger on the pulse of the Black community.”
A
t the Dahlonega fundraiser, Walker tells the audience, “The
criteria for running for office in the United States should be
you love America. The second should be you love the Constitu-
tion.” Those beliefs pretty much sum up his platform — that, and
his love for Jesus. He pledged to the crowd in Dahlonega, “When
I go to Washington, Jesus is coming with me.”
Walker has not delivered any clear strategies for addressing
the four top issues Georgia voters identified in the January
Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll — elections, the economy, the
pandemic and crime — other than to make broad statements,
such as supporting the police and that inflation is too high.
When he does get specific, it can get bizarre.
At a church in Sugar Hill, Ga., Walker said in March, “At one
time, science said man came from apes. Did it not? Well, this is
what’s interesting, though. If that is true, why are there still
apes? Think about it.”
In August 2020 Walker told Beck, “Do you know, right now,
I have something that can bring you into a building that would
clean you from covid as you walk through this dry mist? As you
walk through the door, it will kill any covid on your body.”
In November and December 2020, Walker unleashed a
flurry of #stopthesteal tweets supporting baseless conspiracy
theories, saying complicit fraudsters should go to jail, seven
states (including Georgia) should toss out the initial election
results and vote again, and that Georgia should refuse to certify
Biden’s victory.
Personally, Walker seemed indifferent to participating in
democracy as a citizen for the majority of his life. He did not vote
until the 2020 presidential election, when he was 58 years old. He
initially attempted to register in the wrong county, according to
Texas state records.
At other times, Walker has demonstrated a profound political
incognizance. In a late January appearance on a Daily Caller
podcast, Walker was baffled when asked, “Would you have voted
for the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill?” which
Congress had passed two months earlier amid widespread media
scrutiny. “Until I can see all of the facts, you can’t answer the
question,” he said. “And I think that’s what is totally unfair to
assume someone like myself to say, ‘What are you going to vote
for?’ ”
PHOTOS FROM LEFT: DEMETRIUS FREEMAN; STEVE KRAUSS/ASSOCIATED PRESS