The campaign for governor of Georgia is a supersaturated microcosm of American politics right now, offering the starkest possible choice between irreconcilable visions of the country’s future. The Democrat, Stacey Abrams, former minority leader of the Georgia House, aims to become the first African-American woman governor in American history. She seeks to harness her Southern state’s changing demographics, assembling a coalition of minority voters and white urban and suburban liberals. Her opponent, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, is a Trump manqué skilled in voter suppression. He boasted in a campaign ad, “I’ve got a big truck, just in case I need to round up criminal illegals and take them home myself.”

It’s going to be a tight race: Abrams and Kemp are currently tied in the polls. But Republicans think they can damage Abrams by going after her on the issue of her personal debt, which totals more than $200,000. Last week, an ad from the Republican Governors Association hit her for lending money to her own campaign while owing $54,000 to the Internal Revenue Service, describing her as “self-serving” and “fiscally irresponsible.” Kemp himself made a baseless suggestion that Abrams might have violated the law: “Instead of paying more than $50,000 in back taxes, she gave $50,000 to her campaign. If that’s not criminal, it should be.”

This line of attack throws a pernicious political dynamic into high relief. The financial problems of poor and middle-class people are treated as moral failings, while rich people’s debt is either ignored or spun as a sign of intrepid entrepreneurialism.