What Dems can learn from UFC fighter Rousey’s stunning loss

The 115th Congress has officially convened and with the Trump inauguration only days away, GOP control of Washington will be complete. Meanwhile, Democrats are still reeling and seeking answers to their stunning and decisive defeat.

Much like Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighter Ronda Rousey after her loss on Dec. 30.

For eight years, the GOP had been on the ropes — or up against the chain-link fence of UFC’s Octagon, to put it another way — primarily through self-inflicted wounds. Just when national Democrats were prepared to deliver the knockout blow, real estate mogul Donald Trump stepped in and saved the Republican Party from almost certain extinction.

Now, it’s the Democrats’ turn to wander in the political wilderness, wondering how it all went wrong. The sun is setting on the Obama era and the Democratic Party is out of power and lacking clear leadership. As the party charts its path, Democrats should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

While doom and gloom are the hallmarks of the Democrats’ current predicament, there are some bright spots. Though Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton did not break the glass ceiling, she bested Trump by nearly 3 million in popular vote.

Moreover, while the loss of the vaunted “blue wall” (Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) came as a stunner to even the most reliable pollsters, Clinton did manage to significantly close the gap on the Republican standard-bearer in the traditional red states of Arizona, Texas and Georgia.

{mosads}Despite these bright spots, perhaps the biggest and most glaring shortcoming that Democrats need to address is connecting with non-college white and rural voters. Clearly, Trump’s brand of populism resonated with these audiences and, to some extent, with African-American and Latino voters who have been left out of the economic recovery.

Therefore, rather than gutting an infrastructure that led to historic presidential victories and the election of the first woman as Speaker of House, it would be wise for Democrats to focus on developing a core message targeted at not only young, minority and educated voters, but also rural, older and evangelical electorates as well.

As Michael Wear, President Obama’s former director of faith outreach efforts and author of the new book, Reclaiming Hope, stated in an interview with The Atlantic:

[T]here’s a religious illiteracy problem in the Democratic Party. More 20- and 30-year olds are taking positions of power in the Democratic Party. They grew up in parts ofthe country where navigating religion was not important socially and not important to their political careers.

As a result of this glaring weakness, Trump won an astonishing 81 percent of the evangelical vote. So as the Democratic Party wages an internal battle for the direction of the party, they should be mindful to not fight the war of the future while neglecting the problems of the present.

As The Hill reported, “The 115th Congress is slated to be the most racially diverse in history. Most of the racial, gender and religious diversity will be represented by Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate.” However, white voters without college degrees are still a very influential and powerful voting bloc that Democrats need to court.

Trump’s overall victory among whites was similar to GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s in 2012. Yet a closer examination into the numbers shows he outperformed Clinton among white college graduates by a narrow 4-point margin but his margin among whites without a college degree is the largest among any candidate in exit polls since 1980. In 2012 and 2008, non-college whites also preferred the Republican over the Democratic candidate, but by less one-sided margins.

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighter Ronda Rousey recently made her return to the Octagon after a yearlong layoff following her stunning upset loss to Holly Holm.

Questions persisted during the lead-up to her much-anticipated comeback fight. Did she recognize her mistakes that resulted in the stunning knockout loss to Holm? Could she switch gears when faced with adversity? Had she psychologically recovered from that brutal defeat?

It was clear after being pummeled a mere 48 seconds into her comeback that she had not answered these critical questions, making her closely watched return a colossal failure.

Democrats can learn a lot from Rousey’s recent thrashing. Unless they are prepared to answer the right questions and address specific challenges that undermine success, beware of continued and embarrassing knockout losses at the hands of the GOP.

Eric Ham is a national political analyst and author of the bestselling “The GOP Civil War: Inside the Battle for the Soul of the Republican Party.” Visit him at www.thegopcivilwar.com.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.