Category Archives: Democrat

The dog had a lot of work to do.

He was co-starring in a political ad that had to showcase the candidates good-natured warmth. But the ad also needed to deflect an onslaught of racialized attacks without engaging them directly, and to convey to white voters in Georgia that the Black pastor who led Ebenezer Baptist Church could represent them, too.

Of course, Alvin the beagle couldnt have known any of that when he went for a walk with the Rev. Raphael Warnock last fall as a film crew captured their time together in a neighborhood outside Atlanta.

Tugging a puffer-vest-clad Mr. Warnock for an idealized suburban stroll bright sunshine, picket fencing, an American flag Alvin would appear in several of Mr. Warnocks commercials pushing back against his Republican opponent in the recent Georgia Senate runoffs.

In perhaps the best-known spot, Mr. Warnock, a Democrat, deposits a plastic baggie of Alvins droppings in the trash, likening it to his rivals increasingly caustic ads. The beagle barks in agreement, and as Mr. Warnock declares that we he and Alvin approve of the message, the dog takes a healthy lick of his goatee.

The entire ad screams that I am a Black candidate whom white people ought not be afraid of, said Hakeem Jefferson, a professor of political science at Stanford who studies race, stigma and politics in America.

On Wednesday, Mr. Warnock became the first Black senator ever from Georgia, after Democrats swept both the states Senate seats in the runoffs. The twin victories delivered Democratic control of the chamber and an enormous boost to President Biden and his chances to enact his agenda.

While there is no singular factor responsible for victories this narrow Mr. Warnock won by less than 100,000 votes out of roughly 4.5 million and the other new Democratic senator, Jon Ossoff, won by even less there is bipartisan agreement that the beagle played an outsize role in cutting through the clutter in two contests that broke every Senate spending record.

The puppy ad got people talking, said Brian C. Robinson, a Georgia-based Republican strategist. It made it harder to caricature him because they humanized him.

By the end of the campaign, Warnock aides saw dog references popping up in their internal polling, supporters hoisting up their own puppies at campaign rallies in solidarity and beagle-themed homemade signs staked into front yards. They even started selling Puppies 4 Warnock merchandise.

All of which would probably come as a surprise to Alvin. After all, he wasnt even Mr. Warnocks dog.

Ahead of the Nov. 3 election, two Republicans, Senator Kelly Loeffler and Representative Doug Collins, bloodied each other in a race to the right as they pledged fealty to President Trump.

Mr. Warnock was on a glide path to the runoffs and got a rare chance to air months of uninterrupted introductory ads about himself.

The 51-year-old pastor had proved a natural in front of the camera, and his campaign would film him speaking directly to the audience in a majority of their ads. But the Warnock team also knew that the pastors two decades of sometimes fiery language at the pulpit would be spliced into potentially devastating attacks.

Racial politics were inescapable. Mr. Warnock was not just a Black candidate but also the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the spiritual home of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And political scientists and strategists emphasized that in facing Ms. Loeffler he confronted a unique challenge: running against a white woman in the South.

He knew he was going to be perceived as a highly racialized candidate, said Andra Gillespie, a professor of political science at Emory University in Georgia and the author of multiple books about race and politics. A key question for his campaign was, she said: Can you be racially transcendent and the pastor of arguably the most prominent Black church in America?

The beagle spots were the brainchild of Adam Magnus, the Warnock campaigns lead admaker, who wanted to find a way through humor to inoculate Mr. Warnock against explicit attacks and implicit ones. First he had to call the pastor. I want to make sure you like dogs, he recalled asking.

Mr. Warnock said he did he had owned dogs before (Comet, Cupid and Brenal all mutts), though not currently and was game for a puppy-themed spot. Next, Mr. Magnus had to cast a star pooch, which he eventually found from a Georgia supporter whom the campaign declined to name.

There has been some discussion that the beagle the kind of breed we psychologically associate with white people, as Dr. Jefferson put it was another subtle yet intentional effort to explode racial stereotypes. Mr. Magnus said the reality was more mundane: The dog needed to be very cute, somewhat relatable and he needed to be able to hold the dog.

A shot of Alvin in Mr. Warnocks arms would be the punchline.

Get ready Georgia, the negative attacks are coming, the candidate said, predicting smears about everything from eating pizza with a fork and knife to hating puppies.

And by the way, I love puppies, he added, cradling Alvin.

It was Mr. Warnocks opening ad of the runoffs, and it immediately went viral online.

Mr. Warnock is not the first candidate to proclaim a love of puppies in a pre-emptive act of political self-defense. Back in 2006, another Black candidate running for Senate in Maryland, Michael Steele, a Republican, ran an ad of his own saying, essentially, the exact same thing.

Mr. Steele, who said he was honored by the homage in the Warnock spot, said his campaign was not consciously thinking of racial bias when it produced his ad but he saw clear efforts from Mr. Warnocks campaign to disarm racial preconceptions. Hes making a statement in response to the president saying Black people are coming to your neighborhood, Mr. Steele said. We already live there.

The Warnock team knew the path to the Senate would require a complex and fragile multiracial coalition. The party needed to simultaneously mobilize Black voters at turnout levels close to those of a presidential election, while also appealing to suburban white voters who broke ranks with the G.O.P. in November to make Mr. Biden the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since 1992.

There is a rough rule of thumb for Georgia Democrats to win: They need 30 percent of the electorate to be Black and to carry about 30 percent of the white vote.

If youre trying to make history in the South, and youre trying to elect an African-American pastor in an election which you know youre going to need white voters, then you need to do everything you can with your ad strategy to make white voters comfortable, said Chip Lake, a Republican strategist in Georgia who is white and worked for Mr. Collins.

Or, as Jessica Byrd, a Black Democratic strategist in Georgia, put it, I dont think Ive spent one day in the last five years not thinking about how white people will view Black candidates.

Dr. Gillespie and other political scientists call efforts to make Black candidates more acceptable to white voters deracialization, and Alvin the beagle is a case study in its success.

The whole point of deracialization isnt to rouse Black voters, Dr. Gillespie explained. Its to put white voters at ease. In Mr. Warnocks case, she noted, he did not avoid direct engagement on racial justice, as some past candidates have. He simply and cleverly added a puppy in suburbia to the mix.

Given the first beagle ads popularity, Mr. Magnus knew he would return to Alvin. But how? It had to be humorous, he decided, and it had to repeat the theme of dismissing Ms. Loefflers attacks, which included misleadingly quoting Mr. Warnock saying God damn America (he was quoting someone else) and her slashing him as a Marxist who celebrated anti-American hatred.

The second Alvin shoot, in the scene oozing Americana, lasted about four hours. And at one point it had Mr. Magnus squatting behind a tree to coax Alvin to turn on cue. And Alvin wasnt asked to contribute more than his on-camera performance: The baggie that got tossed into the trash was full of planting gravel.

They put the ad out right before Thanksgiving, reserving, among other programs, the annual National Dog Show.

Online, the beagle spot surged to three million views within hours, and five million in a day.

Republicans and Democrats in the state marveled at the ad campaigns effectiveness. I know a lot of people who did not vote for Raphael Warnock, but they didnt dislike him or despise him, Mr. Lake said.

Dr. Jefferson, the Stanford professor, said Mr. Warnocks sustained likability was all the more impressive considering that his opponent is tossing all this vitriolic dare I say racist criticism that aimed to highlight his Blackness and his otherness to Georgia voters. Mr. Warnock countered with this cute little dog and scenery that evoked a white aesthetic.

However unlikely it seems, Dr. Jefferson said, objects puffer vests, picket fences, beagles, suburbia have racial associations: Its the same thing as a pumpkin spice latte.

When the campaign commissioned its next poll after that ad, it included an open-ended question to gauge what voters thought about Mr. Warnock. Mike Bocian, the pollster, made a word cloud of the responses and could hardly believe the results.

I saw puppy and I saw dog and I saw poop, he said. This is crazy.

In the middle of the two most expensive Senate races in American history, Alvin had broken through.

The race remained knotted in internal polls until the end. But Mr. Bocian couldnt help note that Mr. Warnock had taken a two-point lead after being tied in their previous survey. You can never be sure of causality, his voice trailed off.

On Jan. 5, Mr. Warnock won by exactly two percentage points.

Democrats credited an array of factors as they swore in Mr. Warnock on Wednesday. Few believe they would have won without years of grass-roots organizing by Black leaders. Or without the feuding among Republicans stoked by Mr. Trump.

Alvin did make one appearance in the races final days to pull Mr. Warnock, in a beige zip-up sweater, across the finish line. As they strolled through another suburb, more dogs of all different breeds joined in.

It was symbolism for how he had run his entire campaign, Mr. Lake said. The Republican strategist, a proud dog lover himself, was stunned to learn Alvin was not Mr. Warnocks dog.

You could have fooled me! he shouted. It looked like he and that beagle had a bond!

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How Alvin the Beagle Helped Usher In a Democratic Senate - The New York Times

The November election results were a disaster for Texas Democrats. There were strong candidate recruits across the board, campaign contributions pouring in, hope for flipping the Texas House, even talk of Joe Biden winning the state all for naught. No new Democratic member of Congress, no state House gains. Now that the dust has settled, what actually happened?

Texas Democrats were always going to be hard-pressed to match the expectations of surpassing their strong 2018 results. That year, they had a giant advantage in turnout, driven by Donald Trumps unpopularity, his absence from the ballot and the grassroots efforts on behalf of Beto ORourke. This time around, record early voting made it seem like a blue wave was coming, raising expectations. But the presence of Trump on the ballot in 2020 brought out a red wave of voters that matched and exceeded Democratic efforts. A closer look at the actual results, though, reveals a more complex end result.

If you flip 10,784 votes in nine state House races, less than one-tenth of 1 percentage point of the total state turnout, Democrats would have taken control of the chamber. Flip 52,019 votes and Democrats take five GOP congressional seats. Their problem, in those contested seats, was that their share of the vote declined 1 percent to 2 percent from 2018. Ultimately, you cant win new seats by losing a share of the vote in districts, no matter how close the previous races had been.

In hindsight, maybe this was all predictable.

Republican efforts to do away with straight-ticket voting paid dividends. For example, in Fort Bend County, a county that turned blue in 2018, Democratic drop-off in 2020 from voting in down-ballot races was 7 percent to 8 percent, much greater than that for the GOP.

Messaging during the summer, with nightly news images of violence in cities such as Portland, coupled with the drumbeat of Republican appeals against defunding the police and socialism, probably took a toll on Democratic candidates. Abandoning door-to-door campaigning, so crucial in 2018, didnt help. Finally, Trump also showed surprising appeal to working-class Latino and African American men.

So is there any reason to think that the cycle of Democratic expectations and election letdowns will ever end? I think there is.

If you look at the examples of recent states turning blue Colorado, Nevada with the efforts of the state Culinary Workers Union, Arizona in part and this years Georgia victories all of them have been built on relentless grassroots organizing. In Georgia, a decade of registering and keeping in contact with the growing rolls of Black and minority voters, led by Stacey Abrams, paid dividends in the historic January runoff wins. If Democrats want better results, they must reconnect with Mexican American Trump voters along the border. The grassroots efforts have to redouble now, not in 2022.

Two years is a lifetime in politics. If Bidens administration can right the COVID-19 vaccine distribution mess and pass a stimulus plan that gets the economy going in a country weary of White House dysfunction, maybe the off-year elections will not be so bad for Democrats. If the new Texas Legislature slips back into social issue crusades in a time of a budgetary crisis, maybe the Democratic brand gets another chance. The explosion in minority population may mitigate any attempts to gerrymander districts. And as we saw in 2018, sometimes a single unexpected charismatic candidate cures many ills. Finally, remember that statewide totals are trending Democratic, with Biden closing the gap to under 6 percent and most of the Republican candidates in 2018 held to 53 percent or less.

Years ago, I interviewed Karl Rove in the White House about how the Texas Republican Party rose to dominance. He talked about running strong candidates with resonating messages, but also looking for opportunities, accidents and upsets, because ultimately it was results that mattered. Those results ultimately belong to those who pick themselves up and try to do better next time. Now is no time to quit.

Stekler is a professor of public affairs and radio-television-film and a documentary film maker at The University of Texas at Austin. His film Last Man Standing: Politics, Texas Style can be seen at https://vimeo.com/226210605.

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Opinion: Texas Democrats flopped in 2020 but could flip the House in 2022 - Houston Chronicle

To be clear, the challenge for Democrats is not their policies, which are far more popular than the GOPs free-market ideology. People much prefer the Affordable Care Act and Medicare-for-All to Republicans efforts to stop government from helping people get health care, for example. President Joe Bidens $2 trillion climate plan has more than 60 percent support as he takes office. And although increasing corporate tax rates is slightly under water in terms of its popularity, it has more support than the Republicans 2017 tax bill did.

The challenge for Democrats, rather, is rhetorical. If Americans prize freedom more than equality, Democrats need to find the right words to convince people to support equality-furthering policies. With such a tenuous grip on both parts of Congress and without Trump as an easy foil to turn out Democrats base and turn independent voters away from the GOP, the success of the partys long-term agenda and their hold on power will depend on their doing so. It also might just help unify the party in the process.

***

The parties respective relationships to the values of freedom and equality take on different forms. Republicans have made freedom front-and-center to most every political conversation, from saying any limitation of gun rights is a disregard for freedom to framing critiques of government-run health care around the danger these program would pose to Americans freedom. In the GOPs telling, it is the defender of Americans freedom from Democratic attacks.

The Democrats relationship to equality is more complex. During the Civil Rights Era, Democrats became the party of rights and equality as activists marched through the streets demanding justice for Black Americans. The party passed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act while Republicans rallied around the anti-rights, anti-equality messaging of Barry Goldwater. Democrats also launched the Great Society, an effort to alleviate the suffering and economic inequity that affected millions of Americans.

In the decades that followed, the party largely abandoned the language of and commitment to equality. Calls for equal rights and a fairer economy were replaced with Bill Clintons freedom-driven Third Way and an insistence on the power of markets and opportunity. In choosing freedom rather than equality as the partys defining value for a time, the Democrats helped Republicans define the political conversation for decades.

Even today, the party avoids explicitly owning equality as their defining value. The partys leadership and voters rejected Bernie Sanders, the most explicitly pro-equality candidate in decades, in the primary despite the popularity of much of his agenda, while many of Democrats in purple states, like Mark Kelly, ran on pro-tax cut agendas. Biden, in his inaugural speech, did not mention equality as a defining value for his agenda or for the country.

But essentially all of the partys current goalshealth care for all, workers rights, voting rights, equal rights for women and members of the LGBTQ community, lowering student debt and college tuition, an economy and justice system free of systemic racismwould further equality. And achieving these goals without significant political backlash depends upon people believing in equality as a core American value.

Of course, the choice between equality and freedom is on some level a false one. For freedom to exist there must be a baseline of equality. But these values are often treated as in competition in American political discoursein the debates about taxation to address income inequality, and religious freedom versus the obligation to serve LGBTQ individuals equally, for example. And most Americans I met, both Republicans and Democrats alike, reserved their most aspirational words and beliefs for just one of them: freedom.

Terri, the owner of a Christian candle shop in Waukesha, Wisc., exemplified the celebration of freedom that was common in my interviews. I feel very blessed to be an American, she said. It means freedomfreedom of religion, freedom of choice, freedom of speech. Dolly, a self-described Trump-lover in Pittsburgh told me, This, to me, is the greatest country on Earth. This is the country of freedom.

That Republicans would use this language was not surprising. But this rhetoric appeared in conversations with Democrats, too. Take Taj, a Sudanese refugee from Dubuque, Iowa. Though Taj declined to share whom he voted for in 2016, our conversation suggested that his politics lean left. When I asked what he sees as Americas core values, he told me, This country works well for me because of the liberty. He also discussed how the founders created a world that didnt exist yetin terms of freedom of speech. In fact, most anyone who mentioned the Founding mentioned only freedom as a founding ideal.

Melvin, then and still a city council member in Jackson, Miss., is the type of person Democrats might expect to prize equality as much as freedom. Melvin, who is Black, is a staunch Democrat who spoke at length about the need for change in America. He grew up in Jackson, attended Harvard, and returned to serve his community in a deep red state.

When I asked Melvin what it means to be an American, he told me a sense of optimism, a belief in rightsa potential nod to equality, though revealing that he didnt use the word itselfand the law, and a certain pride. Core to all of those and to American life? Freedom. He said: I believe that being an American means you believe in freedom or liberty, even if you disagree with other peoples use of them.

National polling suggests my anecdotal observations were not a coincidence. The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute undertook an American values survey in 2012 in which they asked people, among other questions, Which, if any of these factors, do you think contributes to America having stronger values than other places in the world? Participants were asked to select all the ideas listed that applied. Fifty percent of over 2,000 respondents cited Principles of equality, tied with free enterprise and the system laid out in our Constitution for third. Ranking ahead of it? Freedom of speech with 67 percent and freedom of religion with 61 percent.

***

But my interviewsand policy shifts over the past several yearsindicate that there might be a way for the Democrats to rebuild the partys and build the countrys rhetorical and philosophical commitment to equality while also helping their policies popularity and candidates electoral chances in 2022. That path requires Democrats to focus on two values that my conversations suggest are still widely embraced and also are essential parts of an enduring national commitment to equality: fairness and community.

Fairness is an ideal central to the American Dream. The notion that every American deserves a fair shot at a better life was frequently seen as a foundational part of American society in my conversations, even among conservatives I met. By focusing on fairness, Democrats can move an equality-driven agenda forward while simultaneously providing a popular competing ideal to Republicans arguments about economic and legal freedom.

When it comes to civil rights, the sense that our justice system has not been working fairly led majorities in both parties to say in 2018 that they supported prison and sentencing reforms. Voters act on this belief, too: In Florida in 2018, more than 60 percent of people voted to restore former felons voting rights. In a country whose criminal justice system is still in many ways defined by systemic racism, emphasizing legal fairness may well be a pathway to broader discussions of societal equality.

The idea that there should be a degree of economic fairness has broad support, too. Even as Florida voted for Trump this cycle, its voters also supported a ballot measure for a $15 minimum wage, while a wealth taxa way to ensure the wealthiest Americans pay their sharehas support from even a near majority of Republicans. And when it comes to health care, Americans believe that every American should have a baseline of care: At least 70 percent of Americans approve of a Medicare for All who want it-type plan. An appeal to the idea that every American needs certain things to build a better life can move the needle for Democrats against Republican policies and rhetoric.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, Democrats need to affirm the importance of community. More Americans will believe everyone deserves political and economic security and equality when they see one another as members of the same political community.

Community was the only ideal that came up in more of my interviews than freedom. Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs talked about how good citizenship means serving ones community and about how their communities are struggling and need help. Polling suggests this trend is consistent nationwide: More than 60 percent of Americans say community involvement is very important to them. And policies that strengthen community foundations like public internet and infrastructure investment hold broad appeal, too.

The challenge to using the idea of community to build political coalitions is that many people see their community as those who are only like them. On my travels, many white Americans implied immigrants and Black Americans need to assimilate for communities and the country to thrive. This isnt surprising given Americas history of racism and anti-immigrant sentiments. Nor is it surprising that many people I met believed members of the other party would not see them as good Americans given increased inter-party animosity.

The Democrats task then, if they want to build a deep and broad support for equality, is to expand more voters notion of the American community. In his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama declared, There is not a liberal America and a conservative Americathere is the United States of America. Democrats need to revive this sort of rhetoric, not to win empty points for bipartisanship from pundits, but because appealing to a shared sense of community will help them connect with Americans now and increase support for equality-based messages and policies later.

For Democrats, there would likely be short-term benefits to these new rhetorical and policy focuses given the work both wings of the party need to do. Moderate Democrats need to rebuild the credibility they lost in failing to fight for equality and need to find a defining message. The left wing of the party needs to develop a strategy to build long-term, wider-spread support for their ideas. Fairness and community may well be the ideals that unite the partys two wings rhetorically, give the party a clear identity and sustain popularity for their policies. If Biden wants to heal the soul of the nation and build back better, he has a place to start.

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Democrats Have a Values Problem. But Heres How They Can Fix It. - POLITICO

Democrats are mulling whether they can use the 14th Amendment to prevent former President TrumpDonald TrumpBlinken holds first calls as Biden's secretary of State Senators discussing Trump censure resolution Dobbs: Republicans lost in 2020 because they 'forgot who was the true leader' MORE from ever holding office again.

The discussions are in the early stages and top members of the Senate caucus arent yet convinced its a viable remedy but senators are exploring their options as they plot a strategy after Trumps supporters stormed the Capitol.

Its an idea thats out there that I think people are contemplating in the accountability space, said Sen. Tim KaineTimothy (Tim) Michael KaineSenators discussing Trump censure resolution Overnight Defense: Army details new hair and grooming standards | DC National Guard chief says Pentagon restricted his authority before riot | Colorado calls on Biden not to move Space Command Senate GOP signals it's likely to acquit Trump for second time MORE (D-Va.), who described himself as quite confident that Congress could act under the constitutional amendment.

I just want us to choose a path that maximizes focus on the Biden-Harris agenda, Kaine added.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who caveated that talk of the 14th Amendment was hypothetical, said it could be applied to Trump, with one mechanism being a resolution from Congress.

The remedies of the 14th Amendment certainly may be appropriate for someone who incites an insurrection as Donald Trump did, said Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Chris MurphyChristopher (Chris) Scott MurphyThe Hill's Morning Report - Biden: Focus on vaccine, virus, travel Tensions running high after gun incident near House floor Democrats float 14th Amendment to bar Trump from office MORE (D-Conn.), cautioned that it was early, but called using the 14th Amendment certainly a possibility.

All of these are questions of first impression, in terms of constitutionality, he added. I certainly think there is a 14th Amendment avenue separate and aside from impeachment.

The possibility of using the 14th Amendment comes as Democrats have publicly called for Trump to be blocked from holding office down the line. Trump riled up his supporters on Jan. 6 at a rally outside the White House and urged them to march to the Capitol, where rioters subsequently stormed the building in a melee that left five people dead.

Senate Majority Leader Charles SchumerChuck SchumerHumanist Report host criticizes 'conservative Democrats:' They 'hold more power' than progressives Bush-, Obama-era officials urge Senate to swiftly confirm Biden's DHS pick OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Court upholds ruling invalidating Dakota Access, but doesn't shut down pipeline | Schumer calls for Biden to declare climate emergency | Biden seeks to bolster consultation with Indian Country MORE (D-N.Y.) has already pledged to hold a vote on blocking Trump from holding future office if the Senate votes to convict him as part of an impeachment trial for willfully inciting violence against the Government of the United States. Though conviction requires two-thirds support, barring him from office in a subsequent vote would take only a simple majority.

After what he has done, the consequences of which we were all witness to, Donald Trump should not be eligible to run for office ever again, Schumer said on the Senate floor earlier this week.

The House is expected to send the lone impeachment article to the Senate on Monday, though Schumer noted he was discussing timing and the duration of the trial with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellHumanist Report host criticizes 'conservative Democrats:' They 'hold more power' than progressives Dobbs: Republicans lost in 2020 because they 'forgot who was the true leader' Biden's Cabinet gradually confirmed by Senate MORE (R-Ky.). Absent an agreement, the trial will start at 1 p.m. the day after the article is received, unless thats a Sunday.

To convict Trump in an impeachment trial, Democrats would need their entire caucus plus 17 Republican senators, a high bar that they could fail to reach. Though several GOP senators and McConnell have blamed Trump for provoking the mob that stormed the Capitol, no Senate Republican has committed to voting to convict.

Kaine noted that the 14th Amendment could be pursued before or even after a trial if senators weren't able to convict Trump. He added that while there were extensive discussions going on about pursuing the 14th Amendment, the decision was ultimately up to leadership.

Spokesmen for Schumer didnt respond to a question about whether he supports trying to use the 14th Amendment separate from an impeachment trial.

The 14th Amendment jumped into the national discussion in the wake of the Capitol attack, in addition to impeachment and talk of invoking the 25th Amendment, an idea rejected by then-Vice President Pence.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says that no public officials who had previously taken an oath to support the Constitution will hold office if they have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."

But there's skepticism from some high-ranking Democrats that the 14th Amendment could be used to block Trump from holding future office.

Sen. Dick DurbinDick DurbinOn The Money: GOP digs in on defending Trump tax cuts | Democrats bullish on raising minimum wage | Financial sector braces for Biden's consumer bureau pick Sen. Patrick Leahy returns home after being hospitalized Bush-, Obama-era officials urge Senate to swiftly confirm Biden's DHS pick MORE (D-Ill.), Schumers No. 2, noted that he had a long conversation with Kaine but wasnt yet sold on the idea that it could be pursued without Trump being convicted first.

I havent been convinced yet because the 14th Amendment is not explicit on how you determine whether someone participated in an insurrection. ... There is a real serious question if that conviction has not taken place, whether the Congress can have a finding, or the Senate can have a finding, that theyre guilty of insurrection and whether thats sufficient. So its unresolved, Durbin said.

Section 5 of the 14th Amendment stipulates that Congress has enforcement power by appropriate legislation.

But using the 14th Amendment to remove a president would put Congress in murky waters, both legally and politically.

The University of Virginias Philip Zelikow recently wrote in Lawfare that Congress can apply the 14th Amendment disqualification to Trump, by majority vote.

But University of Chicago Law Schools Daniel Hemel countered that barring Trump with only a simple majority vote would raise serious constitutional questions.

Trumps defenders would no doubt argue that the law violates the bill of attainder clause, and unlike many of Trumps legal arguments, this one would be far from frivolous, he added.

Instead, Hemel said, a better way would be for Congress to set up a judicial proceeding that would determine if someone was disqualified under Section 3 of the amendment.

Sen. Ben CardinBenjamin (Ben) Louis CardinOn The Money: GOP digs in on defending Trump tax cuts | Democrats bullish on raising minimum wage | Financial sector braces for Biden's consumer bureau pick The Hill's Morning Report - Biden argues for legislative patience, urgent action amid crisis The Hill's Morning Report - Biden: Focus on vaccine, virus, travel MORE (D-Md.) said he wanted more information, but questioned whether Congress needed to act in order for Trump to be blocked from future office.

He may already be barred, Cardin said.

Kaine, meanwhile, floated the idea that invoking the 14th Amendment against Trump could take several paths, but one option would be passing a resolution, which he believes would take 60 votes in the Senate, requiring the support of at least 10 Republicans.

It would be a 60 vote threshold, he said. And it wouldnt require a trial. It would be a debate on a resolution so take less time, easier threshold. If you cant get to 60, you wont get to 67.

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Democrats float 14th Amendment to bar Trump from office | TheHill - The Hill

Editors note: Gov. Tate Reeves delivered his annual State of the State address on Jan. 26, 2021.

Afterwards, Sen. Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville provided the Mississippi Democratic legislative response.

Below is a transcript of his speech:

Good afternoon. My name is Derrick T. Simmons. It is my great honor to represent the Mississippi Delta in the Mississippi Senate and I am delighted to speak to you tonight.

The last twelve months have been a time of significant change in Mississippi and the world. It was this time last year that Americans first learned of a virus that was perplexing doctors and scientists in Asia. Little did we know that COVID-19 would come to effect every aspect of life the world over.

As we talk tonight, nearly 6,000 Mississippians have died because of COVID-19 and more than a quarter million Mississippians have contracted the virus in the past year. This human loss has reverberated through every corner of our society. We have lost beloved family members, community leaders, pastors, teachers, health care workers, and colleagues. If you are mourning the loss of an irreplaceable friend or praying for the recovery of one of the hundreds of Mississippians receiving treatment in our hospitals right now, you are not alone.

To our healthcare workers those doctors, nurses, and staff who have applied every ounce of your creativity and determination in treating us, we thank you. With your work spaces filled to capacity and at a great personal risk, you have come in to work every day. We will never forget your commitment to our communities.

With vaccines making their way to Mississippi, there is light at the end of the tunnel. When Mississippians are vaccinated, we will turn the corner. Of course, demand is high and after a year of keeping our guards up, patience is running thin. But weve come too far to give up now. New vaccine appointments are opening up each week. To see if you are eligible to receive a vaccine and to schedule your appointment, check with the Mississippi Department of Health by calling 1-866-458-4948 or visiting msdh.ms.gov. The pandemic has also had a devastating impact on our work force, small businesses, and local governments. Tens of thousands of Mississippians have been laid off during the pandemic. These historic job losses have drained our states unemployment trust fund and left families struggling to buy groceries and other basic necessities. We must provide support to individuals who have found themselves out of work through no fault of their own.

We must also make sure that the hundreds of millions of dollars appropriated to small business relief finds its way to Mississippis main streets. If we are being honest, COVID small business dollars have moved too slowly and the Back to Business grant program has been embarrassingly inefficient. People struggling to keep their businesses open and take care of their employees need help now. Democrats in the legislature know that this economic crisis is real and stand ready to fight for additional aid.

Despite these enormous challenges, Mississippians have already begun to turn their eyes toward a brighter future. On Nov. 3, nearly 3 out of 4 Mississippians voted to adopt a new state flag that represents all Mississippians. This has been a dream of Democrats in the legislature since Civil Rights hero and former state representative Aaron Henry filed the first bill to change the state flag in 1988. Since that time, Democrats have filed hundreds of bills to give Mississippi a more unifying state symbol. Until 2020, none of those bills made it out of a legislative committee.

While there is plenty of credit to go around to Republicans, Democrats, business leaders, and national athletic associations, Mississippi Democrats know that this change would never have happened if Mississippis young people had not stood up to demand change. We are in debt to the teenagers and college students who organized for a new state flag. You have shown us that Mississippi is capable of doing hard and historic things and your creativity and courage in the face of enormous difficulty has inspired us all.

Mississippis young people know that while a new state flag is a powerful and necessary step toward the future, it is only a step. Mississippi must live into the promises it has made to provide a great education to all of its students and a competitive salary for all of its teachers. We are not there yet.

In the words of Mississippis Education Governor William Winter, the road out of the poor house, runs past the school house. We lost Governor Winter late last year but we remain committed to his work. Governor, Mississippi has still not completed construction of the road out of the poor house but Mississippi Democrats have their hard hats on and were going to keep following your road map.

If we are going to be a state worthy of our young people, we must also figure out a way to provide health coverage for our citizens. While the modern world has embraced healthcare innovations, Mississippi remains at the bottom in both health insurance coverage and health outcomes. The shortsighted politics of Mississippi Republicans have cost Mississippi billions of dollars and left our hospitals hanging on by a thread. If Governor Reeves will not expand Medicaid, it is past time for him and Republican leaders to come up with an alternative. Identity politics do not pay the hospital bills.

As we inch toward a more hopeful future, we must continue to look out for each other. This means being honest about our successes and our failures. Our politics have become corrosive. This is primarily the cause of politicians who would rather tell you what you want to hear than deal with harsh realities. As legislative Democrats we are recommitting ourselves to the truth. That means we will be honest when we get it wrong and we will make sure to show gratitude when Republicans get it right as they did on the flag vote this summer and the teacher pay raise last week. Because it is really not about us versus them. It is about all of us working together to find solutions to our biggest challenges.

Those of you listening tonight have a part to play as well. We can all look out for each other by continuing to wear a mask and looking for ways to help our most vulnerable neighbors. We can also seek out opportunities to develop relationships with people who are different than us. We have to break out of our information silos to ensure that were not simply surrounding ourselves with the information we like. If we commit ourselves to being better neighbors and commit ourselves to the truth, we will force our politicians to be better.

Thank you for listening and thank you for all you are doing to take care of your community. I pray for a better year for you, the people you love, and for this state we love.

-- Article credit to the staff of Mississippi Today --

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State of the State: Mississippi Democratic legislative response | Press Register - Clarksdale Press Register

A potent atmospheric river barreled ashore in Northern California, bringing downpours and high winds that knocked out power, downed trees and generally made life miserable.

The onslaught is expected to continue possibly through Friday, although winds are expected to ease up.

As of Wednesday at midday, there were around 10,000 people without power in Woodland and 9,000 in Davis, according to PG&E officials. Power being restored across parts of Woodland by PG&E crews while staff from the citys Public Works Department were out cutting up fallen trees or tree limbs and clearing streets which were hardest hit.

But the work has been slow.

Meanwhile, residents were out early morning, sweeping debris from roads and gutters to allow water to make its way into drains. For most, the storm was an inconvenience, leaving overturned trash toters and plenty of detritus in their front yards or on sidewalks.

But for others, the blast of the atmospheric river could have been deadly with some trees falling on homes, or bringing down live power lines. Woodland firefighters and police responded throughout the night to reports of problems from major to minor.

Firefighters reported responding to more than 50 calls overnight with more during the day while police reported making 155 calls during same period.

Some senior citizens who lost power but were on oxygen needed assistance as did the owners of some businesses, who found their alarms going off. Some roads were also closed due to localized flooding, notably sections of Beamer Street and North Pioneer Avenue.

While the rain was bad, it was the wind that did the worst damage. There were wind gust reports of 67 mph in Sacramento, and the peak at Alpine Meadows ski resort near Lake Tahoe had a 125 mph wind gust, the National Weather Service said.

The wind was so powerful locally it blew at least three big-rigs off Interstate 5, resulting in the closure of southbound I-5 starting at Hwy. 113 south to the Sacramento Airport.

The road was closed down around 1:30 a.m. when a big-rig went off the bypass. A portion of the rig was still dangling over the bridge as of 6 a.m., according to Caltrans. As of 10:30 a.m., the big-rigs were cleared and traffic reopened on southbound I-5.

Areas in Woodland without power were primarily located on the south and southwest side. Downtown Woodland did have power as of early Wednesday, but there were fluctuations as a result of the continuing winds, which were expected by the weather service to start dying down around 8 a.m.

However, as of noon, large stretches of the city were still without power.

Woodland schools were affected but power was coming back on, officials reported. At the beginning of Wednesday, there were power outages at about 50% of local schools. Power has been restored, however, at Plainfield, Spring lake, Prairie, Zamora and Freeman elementary schools, Sci-tech in Knights Landing, Pioneer and Woodland High schools.

Although these schools have power, we do realize that many of the students that attend may not, according to a statement from the district. Even with schools that do not have power, we are moving forward with synchronous instruction with the understanding that some students may need accommodations to make up work once power and internet service is restored. Individual school sites will be communicating with their families about asynchronous opportunities as well.

Elsewhere, more than 36,100 Bay Area customers of PG&E were without power, and nearly 100,000 lost electricity in the Sacramento area, SFGate.com reported.

People were being advised by emergency services personnel to stay home if they had nowhere to be in order to avoid falling trees, blocks streets and other debris on roads.

The atmospheric river a huge plume of moisture extending over the Pacific was preceded by lighter rain before intensifying Tuesday evening, hitting the North Bay first, then spreading south to Santa Cruz, Monterey and Big Sur. Rare snow was reported in Sonoma and Napa counties north of San Francisco at elevations as low as 1,300 feet.

Debris flows torrents carrying massive boulders, soil, trees and other objects are considered more dangerous than mudslides or landslides. The Jan. 9, 2018, debris flow that blasted the Santa Barbara County community of Montecito killed 23 people.

Flash flood watches were issued for two other Northern California areas scorched by lightning complexes, and snow was forecast to fall as low as the floor of the Sacramento Valley. Travelers were urged to stay off mountain roads above the valley.

The National Weather Service issued a rare blizzard warning for Lake Tahoe and much of the Sierra, forecasting up to 6 feet of snow falling on upper elevations and winds in excess of 100 mph over ridgetops.

Describing it as a potential life-threatening situation, the warning was to be in effect from 10 p.m. Tuesday through 4 a.m. Friday for the Tahoe area as far south as Mammoth Lakes.

The Washoe County School District notified parents Tuesday night all Nevada public schools in Reno-Sparks and the north Lake Tahoe area would be closed Wednesday and remain closed Thursday at Incline Village on the lakes northeast shore.

A warning was also issued for widespread high avalanche danger on the eastern slopes of the Sierra because of heavy snow combining with wind from before dawn Wednesday through Friday morning.

We cannot stress this enough, the California Department of Transportation tweeted. If you have not arrived to your destination before sunset tonight, travel to the Sierra is not advised. Heavy snow is on tap and whiteout conditions are expected.

Meanwhile, icy conditions in mountains north of Los Angeles shut vital Interstate 5 in Tejon Pass until early afternoon. Some truckers tried old narrow mountain roads around the closure and became stuck. In the same region, State Route 58 in Tehachapi Pass reopened at late morning after an overnight closure.

In the Sierra Nevada, the closure of Yosemite National Park was extended to at least Jan. 30. The park sustained heavy damage more than a week ago when it was battered by fierce winds that swept through California before the onset of the current storms.

While the upcoming storm could pose danger, it could help ease dry conditions that have left more than 95% of California experiencing drought.

The Associated Press and The Daily Democrat contributed to this report.

This story will be updated as new information becomes available.

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Storm cleanup continues as another system moves in - Woodland Daily Democrat

I think Trump wants Loeffler and Perdue to lose so he can blame Kemp. Its the craziest thing Ive seen, said James Carville, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton. If he keeps it up, its good for us.

High-profile Democrats, from Julin Castro to Barack Obama to Joe Biden, are converging on Georgia ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff election. The Democratic campaigns and liberal groups alike are pouring millions of dollars into television and radio ads and billboards in hopes of securing a Democratic Senate majority with the same heavy voter turnout that delivered a win for President-elect Joe Biden.

But as they see it, some of the best advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts are coming directly from Trump himself. This week, they plastered Trump's tweets on billboards throughout Georgia, even pulling Arizona into the fray. One Georgia billboard quotes a Trump tweet dissing the Republican governors of both states: "Why vote for Republicans if what you get is Ducey and Kemp?"

Trump is helping our case, said Cliff Albright, co-founder and executive director of the voting rights group Black Voters Matter. If he had just taken the loss and just gone into a corner and just been quiet, then people would still just be celebrating the general election.

But because he's still out there actively trying to steal the election trying to steal Black votes or discount Black votes it has basically allowed it to still be a referendum on Trump. Because he hasnt shut up.

In the aftermath of the November election, the president and his allies have become chief spreaders of disinformation and wild conspiracy theories. Some of it targets the two Democratic candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, but really, they just cant get over Trump losing the election.

So they are unfurling electoral fraud claims, all of them false and many of them absurd: Kemp and Raffensperger are agents of the Chinese Communist Party. Or the states voting machines have automatic vote flipping features and are tied to Hugo Chvez, the Venezuelan leader who died more than seven years ago.

The pressure has grown so intense that Kemp lashed out Thursday at pro-Trump conspiracy theorists for attacking his family, including his daughter who is mourning the death of her boyfriend, a former Loeffler staffer, in a recent car accident. It has gotten ridiculous from death threats, [claims of] bribes from China, the social media posts that my children are getting, Kemp told reporters, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. We have the no crying in politics rule in the Kemp house. But this is stuff that, if I said it, I would be taken to the woodshed and would never see the light of day.

Mainstream Republicans in Georgia have been urging voters to disregard the disinformation being spread by Trump allies, like Georgia-based attorney Lin Wood and former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell. Beyond spreading baseless claims, Wood has been at the center of a push to get Trump supporters to boycott the election.

Even Trump in a recent Georgia visit after much criticism and concern from his own party urged supporters to put aside their grievances and vote. Don't listen to my friends, he said. But the problem is: Trump himself has only further amplified the false messaging the opposite of what Republicans want him to do.

On Tuesday, Trump retweeted a tweet from Wood that claimed Kemp and Raffensperger would soon be in jail for not interfering in the presidential election. The tweet included a photo of the two Republican leaders sporting photoshopped masks emblazoned with the Chinese flag.

Trump gave @BrianKempGA & @GaSecofState every chance to get it right. They refused. They will soon be going to jail, Wood wrote. Similar posts can be seen across right-wing social media platforms like Parler and Gab, where conspiracy theories alleging Kemps involvement with the Chinese Communist Party have spread since the election.

Republicans are growing increasingly concerned that Trumps decision to turn on his own like Kemp and Raffensperger for not aiding him in his crusade to reverse the election results will cost them the Senate. And it looks like Trump could be fine with that. The president has been aggressively fundraising for the Georgia runoffs, but most of the proceeds are going toward his newly launched PAC not the candidates.

So far, both Democrats and Republicans are focused on whether Trumps false fraud claims will impact GOP turnout. But analysts say it will be hard to gauge the impact of Trumps disinformation campaign, even after the results of the Jan. 5 election. Thats because there are so many reasons why voters show up or dont show up at the polls. But a number of GOP strategists across the state say theyre worried that Trumps insistence on disputing the presidential election results will only help Democrats keep voters energized.

We know that the concept of suppression or voting issues actually motivates Democratic voters, said Heath Garrett, a Republican strategist and former campaign manager to Sen. Johnny Isakson. Its absolutely in the medium term and long term going to be a problem because we now have Republicans using the same legal and political arguments that the Democrats have been using.

Democrats are taking advantage of Republican talking points, spinning them for their own benefit. One group, the ReallyAmerican PAC, has aimed to raise $100,000 for billboards across the state slamming Loeffler and Perdue for their underperformance during the general election. The group has put up a dozen billboards in rural Georgia towns with the message: Perdue and Loeffler didnt deliver for Trump. Dont deliver for them.

It just goes to show you how insane some of this rhetoric is about this that the Democrats are just licking their chops spending money to repeat the message, said Brian Robinson, a Georgia GOP strategist and former spokesman for former Gov. Nathan Deal.

Still, Republicans like Robinson say they still expect the GOP-leaning state to elect Perdue and Loeffler, pointing out that more Georgians voted for the Republican candidates in both the Senate races that led to the Jan. 5 runoffs.

In a recent statement, Justin Horwitz, Really American PACs executive director, acknowledged it was a rare twist of fate to see Trump supporters and those backing Warnock and Ossoff finding consensus: "seeing the two Republicans who failed to deliver a victory for Trump [Loeffler & Perdue], lose.

Trump lost Georgia by more than 11,000 votes, while Perdue secured about 88,000 more votes in the November election than Ossoff. Loeffler, for her part, got fewer votes than Warnock in the November special election. But theirs was a crowded race with one of Trumps staunchest allies, Rep. Doug Collins, also on the ballot. Collins came in third.

While theyre taking advantage of Trumps spin, Democrats also are battling misinformation among their voters. On a call with reporters on Thursday, Ashley Bryant, co-founder of the group Win Black, which targets disinformation among Black voters, said falsehoods about the election suppress Black votes. During the general election, misinformation tactics around the country typically included pamphlets with incorrect election dates and fake polling locations.

"There are an incredible amount of resources going into the state to deter Black voters from showing up and making their voices heard from now through January 5," she said.

A new pro-Warnock radio advertisement from BlackPAC on the airwaves in Georgia this week argues conservatives are "spreading misinformation, trying to suppress our vote and disrespecting the name of Reverend Raphael Warnock."

Ns Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project, which is leading the effort to turn out key voting groups in January, said stop the steal rallies and smaller, pop-up election protests around the state are sowing fear and confusion among Democratic voters in the state, too. Its why her team is making extensive efforts not just to disprove these claims but amplify the facts.

To be posting disinformation saying, This is not true is actually not helping, Ufot said. We want to round that out with information that people can actually rely on.

Marc Caputo contributed to this report.

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Democrats in Georgia: Trump is helping our case. - POLITICO

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Andrea Baerwalde is the interim chair of the Democrats of Paulding County, Georgia, a subdivision-filled exurb about an hour northwest of Atlanta. Baerwalde and the other Democrats in the group often feel out of place in the Republican stronghold where they live. The countymade national news earlier this year when a student at a local high school was suspended for snapping a photo of a hallway crowded with maskless students.

Like much of the rest of Georgia, though, Paulding County is becoming bluer, This year, about 35 percent of its 168,000 residents voted for Joe Biden, while in 2016, just 28 percent voted for Hillary Clinton. Baerwalde is 61 and works as a speech and language pathologist for young children. Her husband is a physical therapist and a Trump supporter. We met on the patio of a Starbucks in Dallas, Georgia, not far from where she lives. I asked her about how Paulding County has changed, what its like to be married to a Trump supporter, and what Paulding County Democrats are doing as they get ready for the historic double Senate runoff on January 5.

On what Paulding County used to be like: We moved to Paulding County in 1994. We had lived in [neighboring] Cobb County, and we decided to build a house here because we could afford a bigger place. It was very rural, there was nothing except an old general storethat was actually beautiful, with these big oak treesand they tore it down. Even to go grocery shopping, you had to drive 10 or 15 minutes.

I was working in the schools and special education in [nearby] Bartow County. I always assumed that people in education would be Democrats. But I found that the people I worked with were not Democrats. I thought that was weird, but it just wasnt that big of a deal back then. When I first got married, my husband had been a Republican, but then he voted twice for Bill Clinton.Because hes a physical therapist, and he was traveling, doing home health, he started listening to Rush Limbaugh [during his drives]. We would get into discussions around election time, but other than that it wasnt that big of a deal.

I didnt used to say much about the fact that I was a Democrat to people around here. We moved into our new neighborhood in 2006. It just so happened that the person who lived next door was a Democrat, and people who lived behind me were Democrats. Ive learned since then that there are a lot of Democratswell, not a lot, but more than you would think.

On yard signs: In 2008 I had an Obama sign. I had never gotten a political sign before.Not ever. I was so excited. And I put it out. But my husband, who by this time was full on back to being a Republican, wouldnt let me put it in front of our house. Next to our house, theres a big depressed area, like a bowl, You cant really tell that the property in front of that is ours, but it is. So he made me put my sign down there.

I put it up, not even a week before the election, and when I got home, it was gone. It turned out that my neighbor across the street, who I had never had any problems with, yanked it out of the ground andput it in the garbage because she didnt like Barack Obama.

Before the 2016 election, I put out a Hillary Clinton sign. And again, I had to put it away from the house. It was a Sunday afternoon and I lay down to take a nap. When I woke up, like an hour later, it was gone.

On Black Lives Matter: This past June I had a Black Lives Matter sign out. My husband was not at all happy that I put it up. Then one night, we were all sitting at dinner, and somebody knocked at the door. We went out there, and somebody in our neighborhood stopped by to say that he really appreciated our sign. We went back in, and my husband was kind of grumbling. And my daughter said, You see that? This is good. Look what we did. Look what that sign didforone person. So lets keep it up.

I cant say that Im totally without prejudice, because I know that Im not. It really hits me the wrong way when people are like, Im not racist. Im not prejudiced. No, you probably are just a little bit if you just look inside. This summer, for the Black Lives Matter protests, we had a really cool car parade. It was really inspiring to see how long the car parade was. But what was really cool was to see people coming from the other direction and honking and waving.

On getting involved with the Paulding County Democrats: When Iwent to my first Paulding County Democrats meetings in 2017, there were these old white men, you know, with white hair. If I had seen them at the grocery store, I would have assumed they were Republican Trump supporters. Its been neat to see the variety in the community of Democrats here.

We got 2,800 postcards out to Paulding County for the general election, which was amazing. This time, some people from Pennsylvania contacted us. Its a group called Tinicum Together, and theyre from Bucks County. They have a group of women across the country sending out postcards. They wanted to know if Paulding County needed help, and we said yes! All said and done, I think well have sent out about 10,000 postcards.

On the Republicans in her family: My 24-year-old son voted for Trump in 2016, but he didnt tell me for a few years. This time he voted for [Libertarian candidate] Jo Jorgensen. But hes supporting Warnock and Ossoff [the Democratic Senate candidates] in the runoff. I guess he just doesnt like [Republican candidates] Purdue and Loeffler.

My two sons are very much about the Second Amendment and being able to own guns. Theyre convinced that Biden would do something to take their guns away. My husband collects World War II guns, so they learned about guns from him. I used to go shooting before I met my husband, but I dont think I need to go shooting now.

My husband has just bought into the rhetoric about how awful liberal people are. We have to not talk about a lot of these things. I think, as important as a womans right to choose is to me, people not being able to choose is important to him. Before the pandemic, we would go out to dinner and a movie. We go hiking sometimes. We like doing stuff to the house. But weve also become more entrenched in our sides. Sometimes its just really, really hard.

On campaigning before the upcoming double Senate runoff: I think Warnock and Ossoff do have a chance. I always worry, because Im not used to Democrats who have a chance in Georgia. So Im trying not to get ahead of myself.

I have 200 Warnock-Ossoff joint signs that somebody from up northis distributing all over Georgia. And after I leave here, Im running to pick up some signs for [Georgia Public Service Commission candidate] Daniel Blackman.

In 2018, with Stacey Abrams campaign, we had a sign-waving event, and we got lots of people giving us the finger and booing. F-you Stacey, and all that. This time the response has been so much more positive. We had one sign waving eventon highway 120, just over the Cobb County line that was almost all positive. It was a change from just two years before.

More people from other places have moved in here. Now people are saying, Im not going to sit, sit here and keep my mouth shut. Im going to say Im a Democrat, loud and proud and stand up for what we believe in.

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Here's What It's Like to Be a Staunch Democrat in a Deep Red Georgia County - Mother Jones

It may just be a function of the circles I travel in, but very few people I know are happy with the election results. Republicans are unhappy that Donald Trump has lost his reelection battle with Joe Biden and will become a one-term president. Democrats are unhappy that the predicted blue wave did not materialize, which means that Republicans will likely maintain control of the Senate and Mitch McConnell can thwart any ambitious Democratic legislation. And my Never-Trump friends are unhappy that the outcome did not deliver the complete repudiation of Trumpism, and the subsequent reformation of a chastened Republican party, that they had hoped for.

Like many people, I am guilty of having placed too much trust in the pollsters. But I really didnt think a progressive tsunami was about to crash over the national landscape. The last time there was a genuine Democratic wave election, in 2008, its enabling condition was deep Republican demoralization over the George W Bush administrations economic and foreign policy failures. Trumps supporters, by contrast, are more fired-up than ever, despite his administrations inability to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic and its accompanying economic dislocations.

One lesson to be drawn from this election is that US politics nowadays is more about tribal, identity-based divisions than policy disagreements. But its hard to know what other definitive lessons to draw, because in a narrowly decided election all explanations are plausible.

My own belief, for what its worth, is that Trump would have won re-election handily if not for the pandemic and his botched response to it. He had the advantages of incumbency that helped his three presidential predecessors win second terms. His base considers him infallible and enough voters outside his base were sufficiently satisfied with the pre-coronavirus economy that they tolerated all the ways in which he was unfit for the presidency. But character is destiny, and the same qualities that allowed Trump to win the presidency his rejection of advice and experts, his unerring preference for personal advantage over the national good ensured that he would lose it through his mishandling of the pandemic.

And while the Democrats clearly are the majoritarian party, now that they have won the popular vote for an unprecedented seven of the past eight presidential elections, the country on some basic level continues to reject progressivism.

I dont for a second buy the leftwing argument that if Senator Bernie Sanders had been the Democratic nominee, he would have won a smashing victory against Trump and swept in a Senate majority. Given the Senate results and the fact that nearly half of the electorate voted for Trump, I find it hard to credit the argument that the country as a whole yearned for the kind of radical change that didnt even command a majority in the Democratic party.

Its true that the Republicans entire election strategy was based on the expectation that Trump would run against Sanders. When that didnt happen, they had to fall back on the charge that Biden, despite his decades-long reputation as a centrist, was somehow the puppet of those who would impose terrifying socialist tyranny upon the land.

The implausibility of this claim allowed Biden to flip the Midwestern states that had decided the election in 2016, mobilizing more Black voters than Hillary Clinton did in 2016 while peeling away just enough working-class whites and conservative suburbanites to win narrow majorities. Sanders, who didnt win a single primary victory in the Midwest, could not have built such a coalition.

The more economically populist and libertarian-ish aspects of progressivism have considerable electoral appeal, as was evident in the states (including some red states) that passed ballot measures liberalizing drug laws and, in Florida, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. But in California, perhaps the leading progressive state, voters rejected initiatives to reinstate affirmative action, impose rent controls, and classify rideshare and delivery workers as employees.

But while Republicans dire warnings of an impending socialist dystopia didnt work against Biden, this line of attack succeeded in allowing them to retake many of the House seats the Democrats flipped in 2018. Republicans tied these most moderate and vulnerable Democrats to far-left ideas such as the Green New Deal, free college, Medicare for All, and defunding the police. Angry centrist Democrats blamed their progressive colleagues, during a private post-election conference call, for costing the party critical seats and reducing the Democrats House majority to a thread. The Washington Post reported that moderate representative Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat from Virginia, heatedly insisted that we need to not ever use the word socialist or socialism ever again, or else we will get fucking torn apart in 2022.

The claim that the Democratic party has become a Trojan Horse for socialism also seems to have resounded with large numbers of Hispanics, particularly in states such as Florida and Texas where the Biden campaign performed much worse with these voters than Clinton did in 2016. Republican ads warning that Democrats would turn America into a socialist country may have succeeded in scaring Hispanics whose families fled dictators such as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.

More generally, its becoming clear that while most minorities vote Democratic, many dont share white progressives views on issues like the need to cut police spending, the desirability of open immigration, and the nature of systemic racism. The writer Matthew Yglesias notes that progressives preferred term to refer to people of Latino origin Latinx is used by only 3% of US Hispanics, and that this divergence is symptomatic of white progressives tendency to privilege academic concepts and linguistic innovations in addressing social justice concerns. White progressive researchers also are shocked to find that minorities often support Trumps racist rhetoric or policies particularly when directed against other minority groups whom they also dislike.

Then again, there are a host of other reasons why at least some fraction of Hispanics and other minorities may be breaking away from the Democratic coalition. These could include the appeal of Trumps brand of swaggering masculinity, immigrants attraction to conservative ideas of individualism and upward mobility, and the growing tendency of non-college-educated minorities to see the world in similar terms as Trumps base of non-college-educated whites. Or it could mainly be that, under the unique circumstances of this pandemic-year election, Republicans did a better job of engaging with minority voters, while the Democrats choice to suspend door-to-door canvassing, rallies, and other in-person means of voter mobilization was a critical error.

A Biden presidency is likely to operate under both the external constraint of the Republican Senate majority and the internal constraint of the need to balance between its moderate and progressive wings. While this all but rules out big, ambitious reforms, it is possible that a Biden administration might succeed in passing more pragmatic measures like an economic stimulus, increased state aid for Covid-19 relief, and incremental criminal justice reforms. Its even possible that there may be bipartisan action to combat climate change; two-thirds of Americans think the federal government should do more on climate, with particularly high levels of concern among coastal residents. But will progressives revolt against what they will see as too little, too late?

If the Democratic party succeeds in realigning the college-educated, suburban middle class away from the Republican party while still holding onto its minority supporters and at least some fraction of the white working class, we might finally enter the long-predicted era of Democratic dominance. But the 2020 election showed that these constituencies, as well as the partys moderate and progressive factions, have interests and priorities that are in high tension with each other. If a President Biden can keep the party together, history may remember him as the Great Balancer.

Geoffrey Kabaservice is the director of political studies at the Niskanen Center in Washington, as well as the author of Rule and Ruin: the Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party

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To keep the Democratic coalition together, Biden will have to be the Great Balancer - The Guardian

I can go into the list of things that might be insane about this president, but the truth is that rural people connect more with a millionaire from New York City than they do with the Democrats that are in national positions.

So that tells me our message is really, really flawed, because I certainly dont see it that way.

We do not have a what do I want to say a well-designed way to get our message out utilizing our entire caucus. So we need to do more of that. You cannot have Chuck Schumer talking rural issues to rural people; it aint gonna sell. And quite frankly, I dont know that you can have Jon Tester go talk to a bunch of rich people and tell them what they need to be doing.

Some Democrats believe they are never going to establish a durable Senate majority because of the nature of every state having two senators and the partys difficulties with rural voters. When you hear that, does that tick you off?

Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does.

Why?

Because the problem isnt that the countrys skewed against the Democrats; the problem is that the Democrats have not done a very good job talking about what we believe in.

If theres one mistake that is made way, way, way too often by folks in public service, its that you walk into a room and who does most of the talking? The senator.

Now, some forums thats what the people want. But for the most part if youre in a town hall, and you let people tell you what theyre thinking, let them tell you whats going on and then search into your mental database to find out if theres anything that weve done to help solve that problem then maybe you can have a conversation. But to walk in and say, You need to think this, and this is what I believe is the right thing to think, that switch goes off.

In 2008 Barack Obama cracked 40 percent of the vote in a lot of rural America. Flash forward 12 years and Joe Biden is in the 20s in some of these counties. At this time 10 years ago, South Dakota had one Democratic senator, North Dakota had two, Montana had two. What has happened in about 10 years time?

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Senator Jon Tester on Democrats and Rural Voters: Our Message Is Really, Really Flawed - The New York Times