I came across this tweet by David Axelrod, a political consultant from a time so long ago, he might as well have been the 1800s:
“No one has been more consistently eloquent or incisive in exposing @realDonaldTrump than @Ossoff. The paragraph from his weekend speech that has gotten so much attention was a brutal takedown. But two words in it, “with Natalie” seemed gratuitous and unnecessary. They juiced the virality of it, I’m sure. Probably thrilled some in the base, who figured it was just giving Trump a taste of his own nasty medicine. But they distracted and detracted from the power of the message.”
Now, to be fair, he started out complimentary in tone, but (and there’s always a but), it was framed as though Ossoff was wrong for fighting them the way they fight us.
And his words really pissed me off. They had the kind of flavor of a community elder issuing a stern warning that we mustn’t curse at the ICE agents, lest they miss the rich essence of our message.
And I have some thoughts.
I saw nothing wrong with anything Jon Ossoff said. Not a thing. In fact, it was relatively tame by the slimy, mud slinging Republican standard.
“He doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”
The only thing salacious about that quote is the imagination of Republicans who took it to the dirty place that trump resides in with his “grab ‘em by the p***y” locker room talk, which they all looked past, by the way.
Don’t be fooled, Democrats. There is not an ounce of decency in their camp that they can lay claim to, all these years of them ignoring the fact that trump had to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 (Michael Cohen, actually) because he cheated on Melania with her.
They want us to think that Jon Ossoff merely mentioning her name in a factual statement is worse than trump implying that Kamala Harris had to sleep her way to becoming District Attorney, Attorney General, Senator, and VP.
It’s not. It’s not in the same room, building, city, or planet as that bullshit.
We need more, not less, of the kind of energy that Ossoff has brought to this fight. He understands the assignment, and it is not to play nice. It is not to play by the rules of 1980s congressional decorum.
Those rules are as dead as the invisible, impossible to video call Mitch McConnell likely is. Republicans have been kicking sand in our faces and pissing on our heads, crying bloody murder when we offer the least amount of resistance.
Why do you think so many far left candidates have won? Because they have that energy, because they aren’t playing by some imaginary, “that person is electable” moderate bullshit decorum.
Voters are sick and tired of being handed the same weak ass, milquetoast pablum. They, we, feel the urgency of the moment. Those electric bills are not getting cheaper, and trump is not becoming any LESS of an authoritarian.
We are in a fucking fight with Republicans, to hold them accountable for letting trump sink our country into chaos and unaffordable ruin while he indulges himself in greed, grift, and vanity projects.
He promised to lower prices on day one, and then broke that promise and actually mocked people who wanted to hold him to it. “Affordability is a hoax,” he said, after campaigning on it relentlessly.
He’s levied illegal tariffs.
He started an illegal war.
And Republicans stand with their impotent hands in their pockets behind Speaker Mike Johnson saying “there’s nothing we could do to stop him.”
They are letting billionaires plaster the country with loud, water draining data centers and telling people “there’s nothing you can do to stop this.”
We should be clobbering Republicans in the polls by 20, 30 points because they are all tied to trump’s indifference towards the needs of Americans.
“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation...”
Every single interview given by a Democratic candidate should feature this quote as a reminder of what he said. Every public speech, every rally, should feature a montage including ALL of his awful quotes like that one, and “I love the inflation!”
They want to suck all the air out of that conversation, and have people distracted by Natalie Harp, who is so obsessed with trump that she rode in the trunk of an SUV just to be close to him.
She’s not a victim, she is a fanatic. And he took her instead of the Secretary of State with him when Air Force One could have been targeted by Iran or whomever the threat was purported to be.
Today the outrage is about Natalie Harp.
Tomorrow it could be about Melania, who finally poked her head up, rather than let Natalie soak up all of the attention.
But the outrage should be on the fact that trump, and nobody else, is responsible for the higher prices we’re seeing on everything, caused by his tariffs and his war of choice.
Don’t apologize. Put your fucking foot down, kick their complaints into the sewer, where they can be reunited with the principles they discarded when they chose to hitch their silent allegiance to the guy found liable for sexual assault of E. Jean Carroll.
And comments like this, David Axelrod? Man, fuck you, dude. You are not helping. Your sensibilities are stuck in an era when Americans would have never considered electing a guy with 34 felony convictions.
Republicans decided that the needs of Americans are not as important as assuaging the ego and impulses of the malignant narcissist in chief. They’ve decided that we, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, don’t matter as much as trump and the Epstein class.
And defeating them will require backing our fighters, and letting them be as dirty as they need to be.
If you’re tired of the same tired deflections and you want writing that calls it exactly what it is, I need your help to keep doing this.
I’ve been losing subscribers, and I’ve been told the reason is that pieces like this one are “too divisive” or “too much profanity.” I’ve decided I don’t care anymore. Playing it safe hasn’t grown this newsletter, it’s shrunk it. So I’m writing the way I actually talk, and I need the readers who appreciate that to step up.
If this piece said what you’ve been thinking, become a paid subscriber today. If you can’t right now, share it with someone who needs to read it.
Was Ossoff’s “with Natalie” line gratuitous, or did it land exactly right?
Where else do you see Democrats getting scolded for fighting the way Republicans have fought for years?
What should the outrage actually be pointed at this week?
Drop your take in the comments, I read every one.
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