In trying to explain why Democrats failed to take back the Senate, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell concluded that it was because of false socialist memes, which is not fair because they were mostly not true.
First, Mitchell had to praise noted election results delegitimizer Stacey Abrams for having "helped register to 800,000 voters in the last two years."
Mitchell then inquired of former New York Rep. Steve Israel if this was enough to win the Georgia runoffs, "What do Democrats need to do to turn the state blue? Because they're up against a lot."
By "a lot," Mitchell meant the age-old tradition of one party trying to portray the other as too radical, "For one thing, I want to point out, according to Jim Clyburn, after the election, Jaime Harrison in neighboring South Carolina, after being neck and neck with Lindsey Graham, took a deep dive in the polls after the Republicans hit him with defunding police and a lot of the other socialist memes, none of which applied to his positions on everything."
Mitchell may be correct about Harrison, as he tried to distance himself from the Defund the Police movement and spoke in typical campaign platitudes about the environment and health care, but Israel tried to apply that same logic to the upcoming Senate runoffs in Georgia, "I don't believe those will be the positions of [Raphael] Warnock or [Jon] Ossoff. But the Republicans will paint those positions onto them and what Democrats have to do is be able to just repel those messages and fight on their own message turf.
Ossoff does not support the Green New Deal in name, but the progressive website The New Republic writes his plan "sounds mighty familiar. Ossoff clearly endorses something Green New Deal–ish." Ossoff has also flirted with the Defund the Police movement.
Warnock on the other hand, was endorsed early on by far-left groups seeking to implement the GND and Medicare-for-All.
Maybe, Democrats are having a hard time responding to socialist memes is because they either embrace them or are trying to have it both ways.
This segment was sponsored by Humana.
This is a transcript for the November 13 show:
MSNBC
Andrea Mitchell Reports
12:34 AM ET
ANDREA MITCHELL: Steve, Stacey Abrams helped register to 800,000 voters in the last two years after she lost the closely-fought, hard-fought governor's race. What do Democrats need to do to turn the state blue? Because they're up against a lot. For one thing, I want to point out, according to Jim Clyburn, after the election, Jaime Harrison in neighboring South Carolina, after being neck and neck with Lindsey Graham, took a deep dive in the polls after the Republicans hit him with defunding police and a lot of the other socialist memes, none of which applied to his positions on everything, but they just poured so much money in, and he had a ton of money, much more than Lindsey Graham, but those messages alone and that's what centrist Democrats are arguing with Nancy Pelosi: Abigail Spanberger and Elissa Slotkin that that messaging from the left doomed a lot of marginal
races.
STEVE ISRAEL: Andrea, you are exactly right. In a state like Georgia you've got to have a message that resonates with those swing voters. Stacey Abrams is just a miracle worker, she registered 800,000 more voters. If you take a look at the suburbs of Atlanta, the growth in Cobb County, Gwinnett County, those are generally moderates voters. House Democrats flipped the Republican seat, a clean flip of a Republican seat in those northern Atlanta counties. How do you do it? We can't do it with a message that talks about defunding police or you can’t do it with a message that talks, invokes socialism. The tough part as you rightly point out, those were not Jaime Harrison's positions. I don't believe those will be the positions of Warnock or Ossoff. But the Republicans will paint those positions onto them and what Democrats have to do is be able to just repel those messages and fight on their own message turf.
