While politics is my bread and butter, I'm not a campaign strategist. But even I can't help but wonder whether the Democrats might want to rethink their midterm messaging, especially after Jon Ossoff's remarks last night on America's most partisan late-night program, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Ossoff said the election of Donald Trump indicates a "deeper disease" in American society.
Jon Ossoff tells Colbert that Trump being elected is the symptom of a “deeper disease” in US society.
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) February 19, 2026
This is apparently what a Senator from Georgia thinks of 77M+ Americans. pic.twitter.com/mP6UnblyS0
"I think Donald Trump's rise, Donald Trump himself, is a symptom of a deeper disease in our society," Ossoff said. "How is it that a demagogue who promised to tear it all down was twice elected to the presidency on false promises?"
"And it's because the system really is rigged," Ossoff continued. "He's not un-rigging it. He's re-rigging it for himself."
Remember when saying elections were rigged was an impeachable offense? Remember when "election denialism" was a threat to democracy?
As always, it's (D)ifferent when Democrats do it.
While I can't speak for all Americans, I can only tell you why I think Donald Trump was elected in 2016, and I say this as someone who didn't vote for him that year.
Donald Trump was elected as a direct response to Democrats like Ossoff, who spent the Obama years calling half of Americans "deplorables" and "bitter clingers" who held fast to their First and Second Amendment rights. Obama weaponized the government against conservatives, journalists, and anyone who opposed his agenda. He sued Catholic nuns to force them to pay for birth control, sicced the IRS on conservative nonprofits, and destroyed healthcare.
On top of that, they labeled every single Republican who ran for office, including John McCain and Mitt Romney, as fascists and the latest incarnation of Hitler. John McCain was "militaristic" and a "warmonger." Mitt Romney was going to put Black Americans "back in chains" and gave a woman cancer.
And, frankly, some Republicans weren't much better. While voters begged them for stronger candidates who would push back against Obama's radicalism, they pushed their preferred candidates. When voters rejected them and elected President Trump, they got mad and called those voters stupid. Many of them became de facto Democrats and leftists themselves.
Voters were fed up and looking for someone, anyone, who was not the politicians we'd been governed by for years. And for the past decade, Democrats have made "ORANGE MAN BAD!" their party's one platform, to the detriment of everything else.
In 2020 and 2024, my vote for Trump was also a repudiation of the Democratic Party, it's inflammatory rhetoric, and it's weaponization of government against Trump.
Some 77 million Americans voted for President Trump in 2024, and they did so for a reason. It was a rejection of Joe Biden, of Kamala Harris, and that iteration of the Democratic Party. Ossoff's home state of Georgia voted for Trump in 2024. I can't imagine Georgia voters would appreciate being labeled as a disease.
Instead of understanding why voters elected Trump, the Democrats have decided to attack the voters and weaponize government against anyone friendly to the Trump administration.
That, if anything, is indicative of a "deeper disease" in our society. Democrats believe in democracy, but only when they win. They believe in respecting the voters, but only when those voters choose the "correct" candidates. And they believe in using such inflammatory language as "disease" when voters don't give them unfettered power.
Because what does one do to a "disease"? You eradicate it. If that were said or implied about any other group, the Left would lose its mind in calls of "genocide," "racism," or "authoritarianism."
There will be no such condemnation of Ossoff's remarks from his fellow Democrats or the media. They'll seal-clap his remarks and give him airtime on Colbert.
But the GOP would be wise to use this clip as a midterm ad, so voters know exactly how Democrats feel about them and so they can vote accordingly in November.
