Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) is working to fill a leadership vacuum in the Democratic Party, as his campaign to retain his Senate seat in 2026 gives him a national platform. (Republicans, notably, consider Ossoff’s seat a prime target for flipping, having turned Georgia to Trump in 2024 from Biden’s narrow victory in 2020.)
Astute political observers have noted that Ossof’s recent attacks on the Trump administration and Elon Musk, in particular, are delivered in a cadence very similar to that which young Barack Obama used to great effect when he was a young Senator trying to disrupt the Democratic Party status quo and establish his leadership.
The 38-year-old Ossoff, educated at Georgetown and the London School of Economics, issues his barrage of takedowns without raising his voice, relying on the sharpness of his chosen details to add emphasis to his criticisms.
Below is Ossoff over the weekend, in shirt sleeves, excoriating the false populism of the billionaires in Trump’s cabinet and taking aim especially at the President himself, claiming that “the President is not at his palace in Florida thinking if you can afford day care for your daughter.”
They are literally the elites they pretend to hate. pic.twitter.com/r1qFqCPgSz
— Jon Ossoff (@ossoff) March 24, 2025
Nor is Trump, Ossoff conjectures, “thinking about how to stop insurance companies from denying your claim or anything that matters to our daily lives. When is the last time you even heard Donald Trump talk about health care or child care? He’s talking about invading Greenland, he’s handing over your data to Elon Musk.” The result, Ossoff says, is “cruelty and chaos.”
For the comparison to Obama, consider the cadence and rhetorical style — no raised voice, point-by-point examples — utilized by Obama below, at a campaign rally just before the most recent election.
Indeed, Obama makes some of the same arguments Ossoff is making, though Ossoff has perhaps an advantage in that he is making them now against the real actions of the Trump administration, rather than — as Obama was — against the promises of candidate Trump.
If you’re still on the fence about voting in this election, think about what really matters – about the values we were taught, the kind of country we want to be, and how this is a moment when your vote really does count.
Your vote could determine the fate of our republic – the… pic.twitter.com/qv46tK0r89
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 5, 2024
Ossoff asserts that the chaos caused by Trump and Musk is bad for Americans, but what’s even worse is what the Senator characterizes as the “corruption.”
Ossoff: It was reported that dinner with the President is on sale for $5 million. The whole family is cashing in. Don Jr. is setting up a new business empire. Jared’s investment firm got $2 billion from the Saudi Royal Family. Like Hunter Biden should’ve been more ambitious pic.twitter.com/EC7Jpi35mE
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 22, 2025
“It was reported that dinner with the President is on sale for $5 million,” Ossoff told the crowd. “The whole family is cashing in. Don Jr. is setting up a new business empire. Jared’s investment firm got $2 billion from the Saudi Royal Family. Hunter Biden should’ve been more ambitious.”