A GOP minority outreach center in suburban Atlanta that was once devoted to artificially creating buzz, giving people the shaft, and taking an unusually keen interest in what happens in other people’s bedrooms is now a sex shop. In other words, the building is chock-full of phony penises—much as it was when its previous tenants occupied the space.
According to a new report in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Republicans opened the center with high hopes, knowing they needed to shore up their support in Georgia, a formerly ruby-red state that President Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020. But they’ve given up trying to reason with people and have now simply ceded the space to dicks—just as the rest of the Republican Party has done over the past eight years or so.
Seriously, how perfect is that? The only way this story could be more pathetic is if failed Senate candidate and abortion opponent/procurer Herschel Walker were somehow involved.
Oh, wait! He is!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
When national Republicans opened a new Asian American outreach center in the Gwinnett County suburbs in 2021, an enormous crowd of local dignitaries and state officials packed the Berkeley Lake shop to celebrate.
Then Senate candidate Herschel Walker commemorated its first anniversary a year later, and multiple national news outlets focused on the center for stories on GOP efforts to expand the party’s base into new minority populations.
Now the strip mall spot where the Republican National Committee once held pastor roundtables and Lunar New Year celebrations is home to something different and decidedly more spicy: An adult sex toys and novelties retailer catering to an upscale crowd.
At least it’s an upscale sex shop. No word on whether it’s next to a Four Seasons, like the sex shop Rudy Giuliani made famous.
According to the AJC, the center is the latest in a “wave” of minority outreach centers that have closed in the area. They include two centers in the Atlanta suburbs that the GOP had opened to “great fanfare.” A Hispanic Community Center that opened in Suwanee in 2022 is now a dental office, and a Black Community Center that opened three years ago in College Park is now back on the real estate market.
Of course, while the transformation of a GOP office into a sex shop is a fun punchline, it’s hardly an isolated occurrence. And not all of these centers are getting such a clear upgrade. Some are just closing.
In January, Daily Kos reported on the mass closure of Hispanic outreach centers sponsored by the Republican National Committee.
“The community centers were pitched as a dream intersection of fun, civic life, candidate recruitment, and GOTV muscle, with the party touting Thanksgiving potlucks, toy drives, religious services, crypto workshops, and even an ugly sweater Christmas party with Folklorico dancing in San Antonio,” The Messenger reported at the time. “But four months after the grand opening of the Phoenix center, it was closed, along with most of the other centers, the RNC confirmed after The Messenger reached out. While the RNC touted opening 20 Hispanic community centers during the 2022 cycle, it said there are only five centers currently open, two of which were opened in 2023.”
Meanwhile, The Nevada Independent is reporting that the RNC and Nevada GOP “quietly” closed minority outreach centers in the state following the 2022 midterm election cycle.
The groups touted the venues — which included a Black American Community Center and a Black Voices for Trump office in North Las Vegas and a Hispanic Voices for Trump outpost in East Las Vegas — as part of a “long game” of attracting the support of minority communities that historically leaned toward Democrats. The centers were often used to host political rallies, dances and other community events, with some even helping with preparation for the U.S. citizenship test.
[…]
“This is a long-term commitment the RNC is making to communities to show that we are a party that represents every American,” then-RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said at the May 2022 opening of the Asian American Pacific Islander center in Las Vegas’ Chinatown.
But a Nevada Independent analysis found that those four locations are closed and now host other businesses. The Nevada GOP did not respond to multiple requests for comment about why the centers were closed or if they plan to re-open them.
The AJC and Nevada Independent stories follow closely on the heels of an NBC News report that Donald Trump remains far behind Biden when it comes to building out his campaign infrastructure in advance of November.
Combined, the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee have fewer than five staff members in each of the battleground states, said two Republicans familiar with the committee and the Trump campaign’s organizational structures in 2020 and 2024.
At this point in 2020, the Trump Victory organization already had state directors, regional directors and field organizers on the ground in battleground states, testing field operations and activating volunteers, the two people said.
“This is like comparing a Maserati to a Honda — 2020 had staff and the bodies in place to turn out the vote,” one said. “This current iteration is starting from ground zero, and we’re seven months out from the election. It makes no sense and puts them at a huge disadvantage to Biden, who is staffing up in droves.”
It does make sense—if your candidate is more interested in staying out of prison than making America great again. After all, instead of devoting the bulk of his resources to his latest presidential bid, Trump is putting his money where his mouthpieces are. Maybe he’s counting on his extensively documented record of stripping reproductive rights away from tens of millions of Americans to put him over the top.
For the visually inclined, writer Zac Harmon compiled this handy comparison chart:
As for Georgia’s minority outreach centers, something other than Trumpian greed and (alleged!) criminality may be going on there. As Kandiss Taylor, a former Georgia gubernatorial candidate and the current GOP chair of Georgia’s 1st Congressional District, says, the explanation for the closures is simply “supply and demand.”
And there you have it. An honest answer from a MAGA politician. As we all know, those are rarer than GOP minority outreach centers these days.
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link.