A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.
Voices across conservative media taunted Democrats for their loss in Georgia’s 6th District special congressional election on Tuesday night. National Review’s Jim Geraghty wrote that the Republicans had earned “a little victory dance” for beating Ossoff, who ostensibly should have had a real shot at winning. “If you fall short in an open-seat special election, in a district Trump barely carried, with a candidate who avoids gaffes and with a giant spending advantage,” he asked, “ just where the heck are you going to win?”
Democrats can say this morning that they always knew this was a difficult district, but you don’t spend $31 million to finish a few points behind in a difficult House district. Democrats and progressives were convinced they had a chance to win this race, and the fact that they didn’t suggests that their real problem is that they don’t actually know where they can win. They’re walking around with a false sense of their own electability — just seven months after they were convinced Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 election easily.
Yes, there’s a lot of road ahead, and there will be easier districts for Democrats to win in 2018. But when you add up all the spending and use the most recent numbers reported in the New York Times, it calculates to a $9 million advantage for the Democrats. ($23.6 million raised by Ossoff + $7.6 million spent by outside groups preferring him = $31.2 million; $4.5 million spent by Handel + $18.2 million spent by outside groups preferring her = $22.7 million.)
In the New York Post, John Podhoretz wrote that Democrats misplaced their enthusiasm on this race. “The Georgia results ought to be a warning shot for Democrats, not a battle cry,” he wrote. “They have to be smarter. They have to spend their money more wisely. They have to win where they can, not where they hope to.”
Commentary’s Noah Rothman wrote that Democratic soul-searching in the wake of the loss is turning into “blame-shifting.”
Implied in these frustrated expressions of angst is the notion that Ossoff just didn’t speak the language of apocalypse to which Democrats in the age of Trump are accustomed. But this is untrue. Ossoff did speak this language. He devoted time on the trail to lecturing about the threat to American “prosperity and security” represented by climate change. “History will condemn us,” Ossoff said after Trump announced his intention to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords. He cut campaign spots warning that Trump “could start an unnecessary war” and implied that he lacked the judgment to determine the appropriate response to the prospect of an incoming volley of nuclear weapons. In his concession speech, Ossoff praised his supporters for standing with him even “as a darkness has crept across the planet.” Is this what amounts to caution and prudence in the modern Democratic rhetorical catalogue?
Heat Street’s Joe Simonson wrote a post titled, “Democrats Slowly Realizing Nobody Likes Them.” “Whether it’s cultural arrogance, uninspirational policies or lousy candidates, Americans have been choosing Republicans to represent their districts over Democrats,” he wrote, “despite the fact that members of the GOP are routinely mocked and laughed at in the mainstream media and on late-night television programs.”
The Daily Caller’s Jim Treacher praised Republican victor Karen Handel for shattering the glass ceiling in a post titled “Woman Wins Election, Democrats Outraged.” “[I]f you think feminists and other Democrats are happy about a woman winning an election,” he wrote, “if you think they’re celebrating this victory over rape culture and toxic masculinity and whatnot, you haven’t taken into account that the woman in question is a Republican.” Heat Street’s Emily Zanotti wrote a post along the same lines. “Of course, feminists don’t consider women like Handel actual women,” she wrote. “They’re viewed more like traitors to their genitalia who embolden GOP ‘misogynists.’” The Daily Caller ran photos of tearful Ossoff supporters while Independent Journal Review and the Daily Wire compiled tweets from celebrities lamenting his loss.
In other news:
Conservatives on Twitter expressed anger at a Los Angeles Times op-ed suggesting that it might make sense for Americans to allow for hate speech laws “as do all of the other economically advanced democracies in the world.”
National Review’s David French wrote an analysis of the video of Philando Castile’s shooting in which he criticized the jury that exonerated the police officer responsible for the death:
Last year, I wrote that cops are rarely convicted in part because the legal standards rightly don’t ask police to prove that they were in actual danger when they pulled the trigger. Officers aren’t omniscient, and they can only react to the facts as they perceive them. Absent corruption, incompetence, or malice, most officers are going to make reasonable choices in high-stress situations.
Some, however, will fail, and it’s imperative that juries understand that not all fear is reasonable, and some officers simply (and wrongly) panic. Perhaps some have unreasonable fear because of racial stereotypes. Perhaps some have unreasonable fears for other reasons. Perhaps some have a brutal habit of escalating force too quickly. But every officer must uphold the rule of reason, a rule that compels a degree of courage, a measure of discipline, and a tolerance for risk that is inherent in the job that they’ve chosen.
The Resurgent’s Steve Berman argued that Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s forced exit from the company was spurred by his willingness to partner with President Trump. “Once Travis Kalanick made his first, and unrecoverable, mistake of showing insufficient enthusiasm for opposing Donald Trump,” he wrote, “Silicon-Liberal Valley was out to get him.”
The difference between hero and zero in Silicon Valley isn’t necessarily what goes on in the rank-and-file. Uber’s board acknowledged that Kalanick “always put Uber first.” In other words, he was a good CEO. So the reason he’s gone must be that he’s a lousy person.
Silicon Valley is full of lousy people and SOB’s. They are the subject of movies. I mean, Steve Jobs, right? But you can be a lousy person and a liberal, and be absolved. What you can’t be is a little bit too close to radioactive President Trump.
Heat Street’s William Hicks wrote that Kalanick’s departure marked the end of an era for “douchey sociopathic Silicon Valley tech bros.” “Silicon Valley used to be a safe space for tech bros to microdose on LSD, use teenage blood boys for sustenance and completely ruin the spirit of Burning Man by filling the hippy paradise with orgies of capitalism,” he wrote. “It’s open season for tech bros as it seems America has had enough. RIP you hoodie-wearing, Segway riding dodo birds.”
