George Chidi

3 weeks ago | theguardian.com | George Chidi

If you want a bellwether to measure the broad impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs on the economy, look south, to Georgia. The political swing state has a $900bn economy – somewhere between the GDPs of Taiwan and Switzerland. The hospitality industry is facing an existential crisis. Wine merchants wonder aloud if they will survive the year. But others, like those in industrial manufacturing, will carefully argue that well-positioned businesses will profit.

2 months ago | theatlantaobjective.substack.com | George Chidi

This morning, State Senator Jason Esteves of Atlanta formally announced his candidacy for governor of Georgia. Esteves and I have spoken before here in the Atlanta Objective, when the former chairman of the Atlanta School Board had been contemplating a run for the state senate. Esteves, 41, is an attorney (and also a restaurateur, more on that in here), who has worked as counsel for Equifax.

2 months ago | theatlantaobjective.substack.com | George Chidi

Strident commentary isn’t entirely unusual for Congressman Hank Johnson (D-Atlanta), but it’s usually delivered in small forums with limited press coverage. I have some formal Q-and-A pieces with other people in the pipeline, but as I sat with Johnson and a handful of wine distributors at his Stonecrest office this afternoon, I think it’s worth reprinting his comments as a soliloquy, because they are that on point. It is edited lightly, but if a line is in bold, it is absolutely verbatim.

2 months ago | theguardian.com | George Chidi

For the past two months, members of the Elon Musk-led “department of government efficiency” (Doge) have stalked the halls of the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) Atlanta headquarters. Several employees told the Guardian that if a Doge staffer walked through their offices and saw a badge at an untended workstation, its owner would be fired promptly.

2 months ago | theatlantaobjective.substack.com | George Chidi

Every year, someone in the Georgia Legislature tries to sneak something sinister through on the last day, hoping that if they move fast they can get it done before opposition can rally and kill it. This time, it’s language added to a bill that would gut the Georgia Open Records Act, so that police departments can blow even more smoke up our asses when we ask them to explain themselves. Journalists have been navigating police games over initial incident reports for years.