Let’s remember what Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) expected:
Heh. This is one reason why if we could measure GNH (Gross National Happiness) among left and right just now, we’d find conservatives are pretty happy. As of this moment, the final results are almost a no-lose election for conservatives. If Biden hangs on to win (still not certain this will happen), Democrats will have elected a lame duck. With the GOP keeping the Senate and improving in the House, we have four years of gridlock ahead, and as I always point out, gridlock is the next best thing to constitutional government. Kiss goodbye court packing, ending the filibuster, the Green New Deal, big income tax hikes, a massive blue state bail out (though I suspect McConnell will give them something), and statehood for DC and Puerto Rico. Then look ahead to the midterms in 2022, when the GOP can realistically hope to retake the House.
Realignments are generally built around concrete ideas and specific policy platforms. But this campaign was always a referendum on Trump, rather than an affirmative endorsement of Biden and his agenda. That dynamic already cut against Biden claiming a strong positive mandate. He needed a crushing rejection of Trump to strengthen his case. . .
But Democrats may fail to realize widespread predictions of re-taking the chamber. That would mean whoever prevails in the presidential race, Mitch McConnell might remain in charge of the upper chamber, retaining his role as arguably the most consequential politician in Washington. In that case Biden would be the first president in 32 years to come into office without control of Congress, another dynamic that would weaken claims of a mandate. . .
[T]his is not the scenario many Democrats hoped and prepared for. They wanted a landslide that ended before midnight on Election Day, one that unambiguously crushed Trump and Trumpism, swept in a Democratic Senate, and showed a large majority for the Biden agenda.
Needless to say, the left is not taking this well.
Nice grammar, Strib.
And Nancy may be in trouble in the House:
Stung by their party’s dispiriting showing at the polls Tuesday, two moderate House Democrats say they and other centrists are privately discussing a plan that was unthinkable just 24 hours earlier: throwing their support behind a challenger to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
The two Democrats told The Hill on Wednesday that they were reaching out to their colleagues about backing one of Pelosi’s top lieutenants, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), for Speaker in the next Congress.
Never mind the “moderates.” What will “The Squad” want?
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