Dems will do anything to beat Trump, except let go of the culture war

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In retrospect, Jon Ossoff’s loss in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District was overdetermined. He didn’t live in the district. He had no record of public service. Youthful to a fault, he looked like he should have been running for class president.

Yet it didn’t help that he was an orthodox liberal who conceded nothing on cultural issues, even though he was running in a Republican district in the South.

In this, Ossoff merely reflected his party’s attitude. Stopping Trump is imperative, so long as it doesn’t require the party rethinking its uncompromising stance on abortion, guns or immigration. Every old rule should be thrown out in the cause of the resistance — except the tried-and-true orthodoxies on social issues.

The Georgia election showed the limits of the resistance, a partisan phenomenon with no crossover appeal. The idea that a significant portion of the GOP is watching CNN’s hour-by-hour coverage of the so-called Russia scandal and eagerly awaiting the opportunity to send a message to Trump about how Michael Flynn should’ve been more careful about disclosing his lobbying work is otherworldly.

What’s more, to the extent that the resistance is about literally ousting Trump from office, it courts a backlash to the backlash. This is what happened in Georgia — Democrats turned out in an anti-Trump backlash, while Republicans turned out in an anti-anti-Trump backlash.

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This is why Ossoff was right to try to downplay his opposition to Trump and try to sound like a pragmatist on fiscal issues. It just wasn’t very credible. Tens of millions of progressive dollars didn’t flood into the district to elect a polite young fiscal conservative with no strong feelings about Trump. Ossoff was easily attacked as a callow creation of the resistance and a would-be foot soldier for Nancy Pelosi.

She is a national target like Newt Gingrich was in the late 1990s. The upside of having her as the speaker-in-waiting is not obvious, but certainly serves the GOP’s interests.

Plus, Ossoff didn’t immunize himself at all. He was down-the-line pro-choice on abortion. He didn’t dissent from typical liberal views on gun control. He parroted the usual lines about “comprehensive immigration reform.”

Departures on these issues are important. They’re genuine statements of independence from the national party. They signal a sympathy with the concerns of culturally conservative voters who might not support Republican economics. They take the edge off the perception of the Democrats as a high-handed coastal party.

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