Earlier this year I stumbled across one of those factoids that seems surprising yet appears to be true. Atlanta is the second-largest black majority metropolis on the planet, trailing only Lagos, Nigeria. This leapt to mind as I awaited election results confirming Georgia’s re-election of Rev. Raphael Warnock to a full, six-year Senate term. The demographic contrast between the two crowds attending watch parties could not have been more obvious. Warnock’s supporters were young and predominantly black, together with a sizable fraction of whites with a mix of hijabs and turbans, Asian shirt-jackets and Latino embroidery. Herschel Walker’s fans were a full generation or two older, almost exclusively white, appareled in dungarees and sweatpants.

You don’t have to be a statistician to guess which group is more representative of the full diversity and momentum of Georgia’s rapidly changing electorate. It’s not unreasonable to wonder whether Brian Kemp could be the state’s final Republican governor. When Andrew Young was elected mayor of Atlanta in 1982, he pioneered a 40-year reign of African-American successors. For the most part, Atlanta has fared well under their leadership. Rachel Maddow’s proclamation that the city harbors the “cultural heartbeat of America” likely pleased the Chamber of Commerce but may overstate the case. Despite its evident vitality, Atlanta has also experienced its fair share of urban challenges, including serial killers, sporadic police brutality and some of the worst traffic congestion in the nation.

Nonetheless, its successes far outweigh the negatives. Georgia hosts the largest television and movie production studios outside Hollywood and hosts a world class hip-hop music industry. For young, black professionals, job opportunities in Atlanta rival anything that New York might offer them. President Jimmy Carter may have served only a single term in the White House, but his fingerprints can be detected across the state — from the city’s subway system and world class airport to the reasonably amicable partnership between urban blacks and whites across the metropolitan region. It is no accident that during his victory sermon, Warnock emphasized the political importance of voters being “seen.” He specifically cited the struggles facing rural farmers, mostly white, and emphasized, “I see you.” He may have lost most of their votes in 2022, but he should do better next time.

It was just a few days earlier that an Iranian sportswriter attempted to provoke one of the few African-American soccer players on the American World Cup team during a press conference by recounting the decades of mistreatment directed towards blacks — inquiring how the young man could play for such a country. He refused to take this bait, pointing out there has been continuing racial progress, even substantial improvements in his own lifetime. Peter Marshall, the well-known U. S. Senate chaplain during the 1950s and 1960s once observed, “may we think of freedom, not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right.” Herschel Walker did not win the election to represent Georgia in the Senate, but he demonstrated far more character than his Mar-A-Lago mentor in his election night concession speech. Perhaps it’s a part of his long experience as a competitive athlete. He was able to acknowledge he had lost but still remained proud of the fight he had waged.

When I was sworn into the U. S. Navy in 1968, I took the same oath as does each member of Congress as well as all sworn officers of the United States of America, including our president and vice president. Among the commitments I attested to was the defense and protection of the Constitution. My oath did not imply I was crazy about the war then being waged in Vietnam, nor did it require my full and unstinting support for every previous act of Congress, prior decisions of the Supreme Court or the policies published in the Federal Register. What it did obligate me to was a vow of respect and adherence to all these rules and edicts during the length of my service. No society, no government can long endure without this obligation of sworn compliance. When Donald Trump suggests constitutional provisions should be regarded as optional, subject to the whims of the moment, he violates that oath.

I recently read the memoir, “Free,” by Lea Ypi, an Albanian who witnessed the collapse of her communist homeland while a teenager in the 1990s. Albania had achieved the seemingly impossible, poisoning its comradely relations with both Soviet Russia and Communist China by claiming to be the most truly loyal Marxists. She draws a comparison between the socialist claims of “freedom from” poverty and injustice (enforced by a police state), and the democratic “freedom to” be exactly whatever fulfills our personal sense of self. As Spike Lee reminds us, this latter freedom still requires that we, “Do the Right Thing.”

Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former Colorado legislator.