HOORAY! We lost again!!!
A reliable source of humor after Democrats lose elections is Vox writer Matthew Yglesias. A month ago Yglesias was celebrating the loss of the democrat in the Montana special congressional election by declaring his loss to really mean a win for democrats. Yglesias continued mining this political comedy vein by declaring that the loss of Jon Ossoff in the George 6th Congressional District special election, after the party blew over $30 million on his campaign, really means that the "Republicans are in trouble."
Yes, while almost all other Democrats and liberals are in a mournful mood, Yglesias is out there enthusiastically shaking his pom-poms with his laughable analysis in which he determines yet more bad news for Republicans. The comedy of his June 21 post-election analysis starts with this hilarious title, The overall message of 2017 special elections is that Republicans are in trouble:
Rank-and-file Democrats are, reasonably, disappointed with a loss in what seemed to be a winnable special election in Georgia. Even my colleague Andrew Prokop warns that Democrats shouldn’t “sugarcoat” the result, which is “bad news” for the party.
Stand by for a massive sugarcoat by Yglesias:
But step back from the specifics of the race and look at all four special elections in red districts held since Donald Trump’s election, and a more optimistic story emerges. Democrats have successfully transferred Hillary Clinton’s gains in well-educated districts to their down-ballot candidates, even while succeeding in making up some of the ground she lost in white working-class ones.
Wow! It's almost as if the Democrats actually won all those special elections that they lost. Give us some more pom-pom shakes, Matt:
...the underlying reality revealed by the four elections taken as a whole is actually more bullish for Democrats than the one the party’s leaders thought they were in. If the basic pattern holds up — with Democrats pocketing Clinton’s gains and the GOP not consolidating Trump’s — they are well positioned for the future.
Ah, it's not whether you win or lose that counts. What really matters is how "well positioned" you are.
Yglesias concludes on a high note for the Democrats despite them having lost all the special congressional elections since November:
...the basic message of these special elections is entirely consistent with a polling outlook that looks bad for the GOP. Trump pulled many new voters into the GOP coalition, but many of them are willing to drift back to the Democrats — at least with Trump not on the ballot. But he also repulsed many traditional Republican voters, and they don’t seem to be coming back home.
The good news for Matthew Yglesias is that his November 4, 2020 article already has a title ready: How Trump's Landslide Is Really Good News For Democrats.
