Meredith Dean, Director of Community Works, an initiative to build relationships and trust across political differences, asked Oconee County Democrats last week to “think differently” about people living in rural America.
Speaking to the Democrats via Zoom from her base in rural Virginia, Dean said “both major parties have actually failed rural communities,” and this is part of the reason Democrats “are in the situation” they are in.
Dean recommended that the local Democrats partner with local civic, church, school and other groups on nonpartisan projects to strengthen rural and working class communities and, indirectly, the Democratic “brand.”
The message that Dean delivered to the Democrats was similar to the one Kevin Olasanoye, Executive Director of the Democratic Party of Georgia, offered at the 10th Congressional District meeting last month in Oconee County, hosted by Oconee County Democratic Party leadership.
"Too often Democrats are so professorial in their conversations with people who are working class that they don't feel like we get them," Olasanoye said.
Following Dean's comments last week, the Democrats broke into five committees to structure their work this year, with one of them specifically focused on community.
On Friday of last week, Oconee County Democratic Party Chair Harold Thompson joined with Barbara Burt, co-leader of Indivisible GA 10, to drop off 163 comments gathered at the Town Hall Meeting WithOUT Collins on March 18 to Collins's Monroe Office.
On Saturday, Oconee County Republicans held their precinct caucuses and county convention, where party members re-elected Kathy Hurley, Chair, Colby Baker, Melvin Davis, and Jeff Hood as vice chairs, and Tammy Gilland, as Secretary/Treasurer.
Oconee Democratic Party Meeting
Dean, who grew up in Georgia but has lived in rural western Virginia for 40 years, told the 35 people at the March 20 meeting of the Oconee County Democrats at the Oconee County Library in Wire Park that the Community Works project grew up out of the larger Rural Urban Bridge Initiative.
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| Slide Used By Dean 3/20/2025 |
The goal of that initiative is to “listen to rural and working class voices and concerns (and) come to appreciate the strengths and challenges of rural areas,” she said.
“We are asking people to just think differently,” she said.
“The college educated are unabashed in our bias against those less educated than ourselves,” she said. “And we tend to be far more prejudicial about other groups, about people, whose ideological views diverge from our own.”
“Just about every day in this work I get asked why are those people in rural areas, why do those people in your county, vote against their own self interest?” she said.
“And so we pose this question,” she continued. “Why do so many people in the countryside see liberals and Democrats as being against their best interest and dismissive of their needs, values and priorities?”
“The goal is to work alongside local groups to address local needs,” she said, “with the end goal of improving community views in rural areas toward the Democratic Party both locally and nationally.”
The Community Works project began in 2023 in four counties in Virginia and expanded to include Hart, Jenkins, and McDuffie counties in Georgia last year.
The five committees that the Oconee County Democrats agreed to form at the end of the meeting are: Elections, Communications, Community, Civil Rights, and Legislation.
Democratic February Meeting
Kevin Olasanoye, Democratic Party of Georgia Executive Director, was the featured speaker in the morning session of the Democratic Party Congressional District 10 meeting on Feb. 22 at the Piedmont Oconee Health Campus Lobby Meeting Room on Jennings Mill Road.
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| Olasanoye 2/22/2025 |
Olasanoye began his comments by saying "There are a number of things that we should be encouraged by in this past election cycle."
Kamala Harris received 74,384 more votes in Georgia in 2024 than Joe Biden did in 2020, according to official election results from Federal Election Commission.
Olasanoye said this was the most votes that any Democrat has gotten in a statewide race in Georgia.
"What that tells me is we did a lot of really incredible work here in Georgia about which we should be really proud, not withstanding the result," Olasanoye said.
Donald Trump increased his vote numbers by 201,263 from 2020 to 2024, however, and his percentage of the vote by 3.2 percent, while Harris's percentage of the vote was 2.7 percent below that of Biden.
Olasanoye said that while it was important to recognize the success of the Party in 2024, it is more important to try to understand what went wrong.
"The truth is that people believe that Democrats don't give a damn about working people any more," Olasanoye said. "That is what they think. It really doesn't matter what we say or what we're fighting for. When perception becomes reality, we have a problem."
"I have instructed our people I don't want to hear about an esoteric policy conversation," he said. "If you are going to communicate, you need to tell me how does it matter to my 37-year-old truck driver brother who doesn't watch Rachel Maddow."
"As we are talking about issues," he said, "we have to get back to the kitchen table and not talk at people but talk to them as if we are people who have had a seat at that table."
Comments For Collins
The nearly 400 people who turned out for the Town Hall Meeting at the Athens Library on March 18 produced 163 comment forms to be delivered to District 10 Congressman Mike Collins, a Republican.
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| Thompson 3/20/2025 |
Collins had said in advance he would not attend the Town Hall Meeting.
Burt, from Indivisible GA 10, who introduced the March 18 program, told those present that she would deliver the comments to Collins at his office in Monroe.
According to a news release sent out under Burt’s name on Friday (March 21), a group of organizers and participants from the 10th Congressional District carried the questions to Collins’s office in Monroe on Friday.
That news release said that the comments addressed “the chaos caused by government funding cuts, the safety of Social Security, cuts to Medicaid, attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, cuts to research grants at Georgia universities, and the unwillingness of Representative Collins to meet with voters and answer their questions."
The Town Hall Meeting with Collins was co-sponsored by Indivisible GA10 and Indivisible Boldly Blue, the Oconee County Democratic Party, and the Athens-Clarke County Democratic Party.
At the Oconee County Democratic Party meeting on March 20 at the Library, Party Chair Thompson praised Oconee County Democratic Party leader Pam Davis and Burt for the Town Hall.
“They pulled this together in about two weeks,” he said, beginning “when Pam realized Mike Collins was going to be in town this week because he’s on recess.”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson had advised fellow Republican members of Congress not to participate in Town Hall meetings during the recess.
GOP Meeting
The Republican Party precinct meetings and convention on March 22 were open to “any resident of Oconee County that is registered to vote and will affirm their allegiance to the Republican Party,” Party Chair Hurley said in an email message before the meeting.
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| Flags At GOP Caucus And Convention 3/22/2025 |
In addition any resident of the county who was registered to vote, could run for any of the party offices as long as the voters presented a letter of intent to run and a political resume to the nominating committee chair before the Feb. 20 deadline set by the Executive Committee, Hurley said in another email after the meeting.
Shami Jones served as Nominating Committee Chair, and Kirk Shook served as Convention Chair, Hurley said.
In the elections, the positions of secretary and treasurer were merged. Prior to the election, Darrell Huckaby had served as treasurer.
The caucus chairs for the newly consolidated and named caucuses elected on March 22 are Mike Mauldin. Oconee South, Tommy Malcom, Oconee Central, Kirk Shook, Oconee Northeast, and Lyndel Hurley, Dark Corner.
Hurley said 29 people attended the precinct caucuses.
The Oconee County Republican Party is not holding its regular meeting in March.
It has two speakers lined up for its April 28 meeting, former Congressman Jody Hice and JaQuon Stembridge, who is running for Assistant Secretary of the Georgia Republican Party.
That meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. in the Piedmont Oconee Health Campus Lobby Meeting Room, 1305 Jennings Mill Road, where the March 22 party caucuses and convention also were held.
Video
The first video below is from the March 20 meeting of the Oconee County Democratic Party.
Dean began her comments at 5:44 in the video.
The group broke into committee groups at 59:05 in the video.
I recorded through the whole meeting, but I edited out the last half hour of discussion at the tables in the video below simply to save storage space on Vimeo. I pay a fee based on the amount of space used.
The second video is of the Feb. 22 Congressional District 10 Democratic Party Meeting.
I attended the Oconee County celebration of its 150th Birthday that morning and arrived at the Democratic meeting only at noon.
Thompson had placed my camera at the rear of the room, at my request and with the approval of the Democratic Party, to record the morning session.
Nakita Hemingway, District Vice Chair, called the meeting to order and introduced Olasanoye at 8:04 in the video.
Burt addressed the Board at 1:32 in the video, and was followed by a number of other speakers.
The video is of the entire meeting.
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