Posted on 02/04/2021 9:47:00 AM PST by SeekAndFind
During a week in which Democrats formally finalized their takeover of the US Senate's instruments of power, and flexed their legislative muscles by pushing through a party-line vote to pave the way for a massive spending bill, it seems like an opportune moment to reflect on how we got here. Republican voters largely held the line, despite a daunting Senate map, in November. After election night, it very much looked like Democrats would net just one single seat in the upper chamber, allowing Mitch McConnell to remain majority leader, and force the Biden administration into tough negotiations on a wide range of issues. All they had to do was not lose both Georgia runoffs, which seemed eminently achievable. After all, Republicans had received more votes than Democrats in both races in the first round, and the runoff format has traditionally heavily favored the GOP. But then January 5 happened, and the Democrats swept both contests.
As a result, Chuck Schumer is now majority leader, and Kamala Harris is the tie-breaking vote. In the immediate aftermath of that debacle, we cited early evidence that David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler lost because Democrats were united and motivated, while GOP turnout was underwhelming amid conspiracies and intra-party anger. Republican fears had come true. More support for this theory has continued to trickle in:
Story of the lost #GASen runoffs: Decreased GOP turnout pic.twitter.com/grZnpYHeMC— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) January 15, 2021
More data, via the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Over 752,000 Georgia voters who cast ballots in the presidential election didn’t show up again for the runoffs just two months later, according to a new analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of recently released voting records. More than half of the no-shows were white, and many lived in rural areas, constituencies that lean toward Republican candidates...Trump’s message that the election was stolen discouraged voters such as Craig Roland, a 61-year-old Rome resident. Roland said he didn’t believe his vote would count. “What good would it have done to vote? They have votes that got changed,” Roland said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever vote again."...The AJC’s analysis found that the drop in turnout was most severe in northwest and South Georgia, areas where Trump held rallies, in Dalton and Valdosta, to bolster support for the state’s Republican senators.
That quote from Mr. Roland must haunt Georgia GOP operatives' nightmares. When the most prominent and influential Republican in the country repeatedly and baselessly tells his ardent fans that the election was rigged and stolen – including by members of their own party, in their own state – a significant number of those fans will internalize and believe that message. Follow-up exhortations that they turn out to vote anyway will invariably fall on a lot of deaf ears. And that's precisely what happened. The "Trumpiest" areas (including the North Georgia district represented by a certain congresswoman who was a loud "stop the steal" adherent, and who evidently is predisposed to believe literally any conspiracy that crosses her desk) saw the biggest dips. The statistics tell the story, Allahpundit writes: "Eleven percent fewer whites who voted in the presidential election turned out for the runoffs. By comparison, just eight percent fewer black voters did. Warnock defeated Loeffler by 93,000 votes while Ossoff topped Perdue by just 55,000; the number of whites who showed up for the Trump/Biden race but didn’t show up for the Senate races was on the order of 400,000 people." And both GOP Senate candidates were essentially forced to go along with the incoherent, "stop the steal," but also vote' two-step, in what a former campaign official described as a daily "hostage situation":
"It was a hostage situation every day," said one Republican strategist familiar with the campaigns who only agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity. "We were always trying to guard against the tweet [from Trump]," the strategist said. "Every week we had some new sort of demand," said another strategist involved with the campaigns. "Calling for the hand recount. The signature match. A special session. $2,000 [coronavirus relief] checks. Objecting to the electors." "It was, 'If you do not do this, the president will actively work against you and you will lose,' " he recalled.
Can't win races without the base, can't win races in certain key states and districts with only the base. That's the very real dilemma moving forward as the party goes to war with itself, replete with purges and loyalty tests. And the GOP fratricide runs a very serious risk of turning a red state into a purple state into a blue state in a matter of a few cycles. Internal Republican animosity and dysfunction are boosting Democrats in Georgia, to the point that at this stage, it's hard not to see both Raphael Warnock and Stacey Abrams as early frontrunners in the 2022 Senate and gubernatorial elections, respectively:
The President’s call to the the criminal SOS Raffensberger didn’t do a damn thing. Not sure where you’re from. But if you’re not from Georgia I invited you to drive around. Start in Atlanta and then work your way out. There are still TRUMP signs everywhere.
Pure and simple fact........Raffensberger, Duncan, Kemp and Abrams rigged the election.....it was not addressed or fixed by the one body that could have and should fixed it, the Georgia Legislature....they allowed 60 days for more registrations, while the Dem’s did everything they could to increase their numbers.....and once again, Mail In Voting stole the day....imagine that.
You did not deliver on any of those things idiot, that's why you lost. You were warned in advance and still you did nothing.
I think you’re insane.
Not taking advantage of mail in ballots......WTF does that mean?
In Georgia there was record numbers of early voters, who stood in line for HOURS and voted IN PERSON. HOURS. HOURS.
Unverifiable Mail-In Ballots, that miraculously ALL went to CornPop( in November) and the 2 Commies(in January).
All done with the full support of the Governor, Lt Governor and SOS...because Stacy Abrams told them to.
Nifster ain’t wrong.
The President and his team did everything that they could, short of assuming control of all radio and tv and broadcasting what they had. Instituting martial law and seizing the voting machines to analyze them.
I think we all know he isn’t that kind of person, if he wanted to be.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-lawyers-claim-40000-double-votes-in-latest-nevada-lawsuit
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/dec/4/judge-dismisses-trumps-nevada-election-lawsuit/
All the information was out there. In plain sight. But remember.....NO ONE....ABSOLUTELY NO ONE....AND I MEAN NO ONE....CAN EVER HAVE STANDING IN ANY COURT....if there’s a chance that the Dem’s and the Left won’t get their way.
Yeah, right Mitch.
If you don’t live in Georgia you don’t know
This is written by a Never Trumper homosexual with a bad attitude. He wants to make Trump look bad and not objectively assess what happened.
I wish. I’d love his money.
So why would anyone gullible enough to believe the 2020 election results were fair, go and pull another lever knowing that their vote may just count 75% of a vote? I would not be surprised if the next election, republican turnout is down 25-50%. Do we trust the federal government? Do you trust your state government? Remember, the “privilege to vote” is a scam, a feel good illusion to make you think you have ANY say-so in the laws that govern you.
I agree 100%!
This is the problem
The left was organized, very well organized, they did have turn out as well. For 4 years they built facebook, twitter, snap chat, tik tok etc as platforms and coalitions to get rid of Trump.
The mail in ballot helped them greatly because they took advantage of it and got their ballots counted.
We failed to do that and we lost
There are still TRUMP signs everywhere.
There are trump signs still EVERYWHERE in New Jersey, doesn’t mean he won it, or came close.
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
Thank you
I needed to see some sanity on these threads
We need to adapt
Mail in voting is here, whether we like it or not
But the Kraken is gonna be released any minute, and then Joe and Kamala will be hauled off to prison and Trump made President again.
I mean hey, a Q-tard actually filed articles of impeachment against Biden, let’s rock and roll!
But we heard over and over again what a genius Sidney Powell was! This was 14 dimensional chess, the Kraken might still be released!
Do nothing at all to the cure the disease (Entitlement programs/spending/desire for cheap labor) that causes the symptoms (Illegal immigration/losing elections over the candidate promising more free gibs/indifference/milquetoast tendencies in order to not rock the boat/perpetual grafting, etc...)
Gave us the NSA/EPA/OSHA/TSA/Patriot Act/and other authoritarian programs as well as expanded (Non-defense) federal agencies (Reagan added over 200,000 during his tenure).
Constantly drive up deficits/debt
Does not care about fiscal restraint
Could not organize a Chinese fire drill because the Party is operated by Statists with a good size chunk of the base caring more about limited government ('The Big Tent' "vision" is a house divided hindrance that offers very little long-term progress, dems don't have this problem)
In fact when dems have slim majorities in Congress (Both bodies) and the presidency, they actually implement what they promise on a permanent basis, why is that? They are focused and 'Dare to Win'/no crisis gone to waste. Republicans just talk and curl up in the fetal position unless their actions involve fiscal insanity or expansion of the Federal government (Gee, it's like a trend, which should give you a clue on what is more important to the leaders and their bigest donors).
Why do you think chasing the lessor of two evils is a noble cause?
Maybe people are starting to break out of their insanity and would only commit to candidates worth voting for.
Eventually people will get it. He cost us the house, the senate and the White House. He ran up an $8 trillion deficit in half the time Obama did it and caused us to compromise almost everything we had as conservatives. He was not the savior. Move on.
Yea, that’s why all the Georgia voters were yelling at the 2 chicken s*it Senators to “fight for Trump”.
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