By Yvonne C. Claes

Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel (Photo by ajc.com)

As a Progressive, I am pleased that Democrat Jon Ossoff lost to Republican Karen Handel in Tuesday’s special election for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District.

I’m glad because Ossoff’s defeat proves to the Democratic Party what Progressives have been saying all along: It’s about the issues, assholes, and you won’t win when you offer candidates who oppose single-payer healthcare and a $15/hour national minimum wage.

Ossoff — despite his spending almost eight times more on his campaign than his conservative rival — lost to Handel by 52–48 percent in a contest to replace Tom Price, who vacated the seat in February after Trump tapped him to be Health and Human Services Secretary.

Democrats have yet to win a special election to fill a House seat against a Republican since Donald Trump took office. Not one.

This in spite of the fact that Trump has historically low favorability ratings. Yesterday’s result shows just how much the Democratic Party is screwed. And by default, so is the country, which can look forward to many more Republican victories, particularly in 2018 when nearly 500 seats between the House and Senate are up for grabs.

People may not like Trump, but they aren’t clamoring to elect Democrats either.

All of this could have been avoided

Ossoff, who ironically resembles House Speaker Paul Ryan’s kid brother, is a millennial with decidedly un-millennial political positions. His opposition to single-payer healthcare put him squarely in the Corporate Democrat/Republican-lite camp.

The former congressional aide scoffed at the notion the country is ready for Medicare for All, despite a majority of Americans on the right and left supporting such a program. And many of these Americans likely reside in the conservative congressional district for which Ossoff sought public office.

The political newbie said in a recent interview that he doesn’t support “any move toward single-payer when we need to be focused on what’s achievable.”

Translation: Single-payer is unrealistic and we have to accept the fact that people will continue to die.

Americans are increasingly tired of such excuses and know damn well that if we have money to start wars, we sure as hell can provide healthcare to all citizens.

His opposition to single payer mirrors his position on increasing the national minimum wage. Ossoff repeatedly said he supports a “livable” minimum wage but refused to assign a number to what that exactly means. Such ambiguity won’t inspire voters (See Hillary Clinton, 2016 presidential election).

Senator Bernie Sanders, this country’s most popular politician, endorsed Ossoff but demurred when asked if he considered Ossoff a Progressive.

“I don’t know,” Sanders told the Wall Street Journal in April. “If you run as a Democrat, you’re a Democrat. … Some Democrats are progressive and some Democrats are not.”

I gotta hand it to Bernie. He is a good solider despite the Democrats consistently giving him shit to work with.

Do Democrats want to win?

Democratic leaders aren’t interested in winning. They simply are putting on a show for those increasingly few voters who still believe in fantastical concepts like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and a benign political party. The purpose of elections is to raise money for the ruling class, not to represent constituents.

That’s the only conclusion a sane person can reach.

Ossoff ran (surprise!) an anti-Trump campaign. According to a June 12 ABC News article, “The traditionally red suburban Atlanta district just barely tipped for Trump in November and Democrats are seeking to capitalize on backlash against the president.”

OK, one more time for those in the peanut gallery: Being against Trump is not enough. You must support and work for initiatives that actually will make the lives of Americans better.

And no amount of window dressing — or in Ossoff’s case, celebrities — will hide the fact that the so-called opposition party never fights to expand underfunded social programs.

Hollywood heavyweights — the prettiest among the country’s economic elite— supported Ossoff, although none of them could vote for him. Which brings me to the awkward fact that Ossoff couldn’t vote for himself since the longtime Georgia resident lives outside of the district in which he ran.

It’s a clusterfuck only the Dems would attempt. I can picture their smoky backroom right now: “Let’s go with that Ossoff kid. He’s centrist, will take gobs of money from out-of-state donors, doesn’t live in the 6th Congressional District, talks in platitudes, is pro-establishment, and wants to campaign exclusively on an anti-Trump message.”

Well, at least the Dems are consistently good at picking losing candidates. Or more precisely, they regularly support losing candidates and ignore promising ones within their own party.

While Ossoff enjoyed support from the Democratic Party, Progressives like Montana’s Rob Quist and Kansas’ James Thompson received nothing. Quist and Thompson both lost by 6 percentage points in their respective races without party support. Imagine what Democratic leaders — who preach the importance of electing people to defeat Trump’s agenda — could accomplish if they actually put their money where their mouths are on their two faces?

Both Quist and Thompson supported Medicare for All as well as a host of other Progressive initiatives that would have taken money from the greedy hands of the elite. That’s something the Democrats (like the Republicans) have been loathe to do because many of their own party leaders and corporate masters are among that privileged group.

A word about gerrymandering

Although Ossoff’s centrist positions didn’t help, there’s no question gerrymandering suppressed minority votes, which also may have hurt his chances. The congressional district was redrawn by state Republican leaders after the 2010 census to ensure that minority communities would have little say in elections. The next chance for redrawing districts won’t come until after the 2020 census, two years too late to help with midterm elections.

We won’t know for sure if gerrymandering helped to hand Handel the victory in a district where 25 percent of the population is either African-American or Hispanic.

However, a more revealing statistic is the median household income (about $73,000/year) of those who live in the district, which would explain why Democrats haven’t called out the Republicans’ manipulation of district boundaries. Make no mistake about it. The Dems do not care about gerrymandering. If they did, they would have done something about it a long time ago.

Well, that and the fact that their hands are dirty since both parties engage in electoral dirty tricks to suppress the vote of constituents considered undesirable (See 2016 Democratic primary cycle and Independents).

Ossoff and his Democratic Party handlers gambled that more affluent voters would swallow the candidate’s centrist, pro-status quo message. But how about the economically disadvantaged of all colors? How would they vote?

Who cares, right?

The Ossoff-Handel contest lays bare what politics today is all about: Elites trying to convince voters that they will work for them. But what these political charlatans primarily care about is appealing exclusively to constituents who don’t expect or need much from them in return. And once in office, these so-called leaders will do practically nothing yet keep their jobs thanks to electoral dysfunction.

However, this “strategy” comes with risks.

The Democratic Party will continue to lose, even in the age of Trump, if it insists on offering voters uninspiring, do-nothing centrists like Ossoff.

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