Tuesday, November 19.2024
-Bill Crane
Four years ago, at about this same time, I was repeatedly telling many of my Trump supporting, GOP and conspiracy leaning friends… PLEASE stop this Stop the Steal crap. President Donald Trump lost the election. It was a narrow loss, in four battleground states including Georgia, but a loss nonetheless. Millions in litigation without a single win in court, Rudy Giuliani, “America’s Mayor,” loses his reputation, his fortune and his bar licenses in New York and Washington, D.C., and there is still no real proof of any significant election malfeasance or ballot fraud.
That didn’t of course stop the efforts to overturn that election later, during the certification of the Electoral College results and elsewhere since. A three-vote GOP majority on the Georgia State Election Board, following our most recent election, is again requesting more information from Fulton County regarding the 2020 Presidential Election contest there. GIVE IT A REST.
Now, in more than a demonstration of Equal Time, I am requesting that many Democratic Party leaders, elected officials, pundits and apologists…PLEASE stop the squealing and whining. This time, Donald Trump won the election, carried all seven battleground states, and love him or loathe him closed the GOP vote and performance gap in places like New Jersey, Long Island, suburban Chicago, Virginia, New Hampshire and even flipped 10 counties in central California, and several resulting Congressional district from Blue to Red.
This is not likely the end of Vice President Kamala Harris’ public service. But given the results of this campaign, and the financial resources squandered, I cannot conceive a successful comeback for the White House. Yet how many said that of Donald J. Trump four years ago?
Having lost a handful of those elections over the decades, my first step was towards introspection. What didn’t we do? Where did we not connect with our voters? What messaging/outreach might have been more effective? Where did we misstep or go wrong, so that we can do better the next time?
I’m not seeing much of that from Team Blue. Aside from a LOT of finger-pointing, the blame game, and calls for resignation, here and there, of state party leaders, including restructuring of the Chairmanship of the Georgia Democratic Party as a full-time position, whose current occupant is a sitting member of Congress.
While the Hispanic turnout was flat (just under 5% of the vote in Georgia), Trump’s national share of the Latino vote broke 40%. According to exit polling data, Trump secured the vote of roughly 20% of black voters, disproportionately black men. How might the Democratic Party lure that base back? And though I have never personally viewed women or male voters as monolithic, I can acknowledge and understand the gender gap in this race…but I can’t understand now attacking or wishing ill on women who did not support Harris.
I may not have all the answers, but I do know that wooing involves listening and giving and not cussing and castigating. I always wish the victor of every White House contest all the best. The office of President remains too important to our nation to fail, and the United States remains too important to the balance of power on the planet.
To my many Democratic friends and neighbors (I live in DeKalb County), I do understand and appreciate your pain and dismay, but perhaps you can also understand that your party standard bearers are doing you know favors blaming voters who did not support their candidate for this loss.
Can my kids afford college? Will they ever be able to move out and afford their own home? Are costs only going to continue an upward spiral for most everything? Is there any limit to the size and scope of government? These are NOT conservative, extreme or even off-center questions of public policy of concern to all.
Having witnessed myself many a political comeback – by Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and now Donald Trump, expanding your base clearly remains an option.
Squealing like a stuck pig will not win you any voters. Pity parties may need to be had, but it is not how you want to be viewed. How about competing for some of the political center, versus tagging anyone who supported your opponent as racist, misogynistic or owned by the patriarchy? Not suggesting you abandon your principles, however as both parties have their extremes, not every extreme message needs to become a party banner or mantra, unless you like being back in the minority status.