This is part of what gets me. Ossoff was born and raised in the district, and lives two miles away because his girlfriend is going to school there. Handel was born and raised in Maryland, and didn't move to Georgia until she was an adult. But somehow he's the carpetbagger.
Any Democrat is going to tap into the anti Trump energy to some degree, but Ossoff's campaign was mostly centered around healthcare and cutting federal waste in use of taxpayer dollars.
Trump only won in that district by 1.5 points in the presidential election. The best candidate the Republicans put forth barely got 20%, had failed in two previous elections, and Osoff got 48% of the vote in the first ballot. Also, John Lewis, who is pretty popular in Georgia, endorsed him. Osoff had a chance, though I think "expected to win" didn't really apply to either candidate on the final ballot.
And the beat goes on... President Trump sent an invitation to the Congressional Black Caucus (49 members, all Democrats) to meet with him to discuss policy. They turned him down cold. "CBC Chairman Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., wrote in a letter to Trump that proposals in the president's budget would "not only devastate the communities that we represent, but also many of the communities that supported your candidacy." So, rather then use the meeting to discuss budget proposals and programs, they just refuse to attend. That seems like a mighty effective way of helping the people who elected you....do nothing and grandstand.
They should tap into the energy, but they shouldn't make it the cornerstone and theme of their platform. Ossoff's campaign was partially snuffed out by his own party going on about it being a referendum on Trump.
I think the Democrats are being tripped up by the fact that making elections a referendum on Trump should be a winning strategy. He is transparently a genuinely awful president and awful human being, thoroughly incompetent and mendacious. He is the very definition of "unfit for office." He is Nixon with brain damage. And yet the Republican voters will not budge. I don't think the Democrats realize how intransigent 30 years of right wing media has made an entire voting block in this country.
My feeling is that districts that Trump won aren't really reliable indicators for Republican success, as he was such an outlier candidate, and the traditional rule book needs to be tossed out when measuring his electoral success. The Democrats are being tripped up by Trump, period, which is fucking baffling. I think they are in the unenviable position of being fiscally liberal, but beholden to donors. Republicans act in favor of billionaires brazenly and stir up their base with issues that matter more to the base (terrorism, abortion, etc) than money. The Democrat base is more fractured and diverse, so there are fewer issues that matter more than economics. Democrats are the party of policy, and identity politics. Policy is hard to boil down to a tweet or a sound bite, and I think people are sick of identity politics, especially white people that feel very ostracized by some of it. Republicans are the party of ideals and ideology: they can spout vague nonsense like "Murica, Freedom, individual liberty, etc" and appeal to their base much more directly and easily. Democrats govern by conscience, Republicans by id. Ultimately, I think the side that gets labor on their side and actually speaks to the economic plight of the average person aspiring for middle class will win. Trump harnessed that precise frustration, fear and anguish to a stunning victory. If he can do it, surely the Democrats can figure it out over the next 4 years. The Democrats in Georgia ran a relative nobody with some success (48%) and the Republicans ran a ringer (former GA secretary of State) who eked one out. It bodes well, but I think objectively the Democrats didn't stand a chance in that district/region.
Unwillingness to change isn't exclusive to the Republicans. The country has been mostly a 50/50 split for quite some time. And, maybe the Democrats are having a hard time recognizing that 50/50 part. And the fact that it's obviously not just Trump, since both houses of Congress and 33 / 16 governors are Republican. Maybe the Democrats should stop with "I don't get it. You must be stupid if you vote Republican." as a strategy. There is plenty of stupidity to go around all the voters. But, in particular, the Georgia 6th is probably the most educated group of voters in the state and it went Republican anyway.
This attitude encapsulates the Democrats perfectly, and will continue to be their undoing until they recognize their own flaws.
Please name one or more flaws that, if corrected, would lead to Republican voters casting a ballot for a Democrat.
And "Vote for our man/woman because MY GOD LOOK AT THEIR EVIL CANDIDATE!!!!" is the Democrats' bread and butter. Didn't exactly work too well last election. Maybe both sides should change tactics?
Clinton had literal binders full of policy proposals. Trump's whole campaign was a branding exercise of "[pejorative] [Candidate]". Can we stop pretending this post-hoc rationalizations for voting the way people did actually reflected the reality of what happened?
The reality of what happened is that the Democrats pushed forward one of the most unpopular candidates in history* who tried to explain her many past and ongoing scandals away by pointing out unqualified/moronic/gross/sexist/racist things about the other candidate during the vast majority of the debates/campaign. Nothing post-hoc about it. *Which can obviously be said about Trump as well, but since he won, by definition he can't be the most unpopular candidate in history, can he?
You dont need Republican voters, you need independent voters. How bad does a party have to screw up to send their historic base running to the other side? Clinton and Nancy Pelosi are the paragons of Democratic elitism and yet they still havent been put out to pasture. At least Harry Reid knew when to retire.
Remove the (D) from in front of their name? Haha. I won't try to speak for how Juice would answer you or anyone else. But, for me, if every Democrat stopped treating Republican voters like they're just stupid or uncultured, that would be a start. Sometimes, people develop an opinion on abortion, capital punishment, economic policy and other such issues, not because they're too dumb to understand your opinion, but rather because they, too, have had life experience, read books, study data, or went to college.
Agreed. Less name calling and identity politics, and more discussion without name calling and holier-than-thou shit would be much appreciated. You can learn so much from listening to the other side, whatever that side may be, talk about what and why they believe in something if you just let them speak. You don't have to agree, just listen.