The Left Won the Argument in Georgia, If Not Much Else
Though Tuesday’s gratifying Democratic victories in Georgia are unlikely to move the needle of politics very far, they came as a satisfying vindication of arguments the Left has been making for years.
Newly elected senator Rev. Raphael Warnock speaks in his home city of Savannah, Georgia before the elections on January 5. (Megan Varner / Getty Images)
Besides being among the most expensive in history, Tuesday’s Georgia runoffs were among the most closely watched, deciding as they will whether Joe Biden will be a president with unified party control of Congress or preside over another four years of divided government. As of yesterday, both Democratic challengers, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, have officially eked out narrow wins over the GOP incumbents in Georgia, namely human tax loophole Kelly Loeffler and stock trader and sometime senator David Perdue.
With the victories locked in, this will only be the beginning of a much longer and broader battle, starting with the question of doing away with the filibuster. With a fifty-fifty split in the Senate and vice president Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote, Biden and his party will have the narrowest of narrow margins by which to pass legislation in the middle of a health and economic crisis that looks set to continue dragging on. In many ways, the biggest significance of Warnock’s win and Ossoff’s probable victory isn’t their effect on what comes next, but has to do with the lessons we and the general public can take away from them.
Promising to Make People’s Lives Better Works
It remains to be seen whether a barely Democratic Senate will actually result in much of any left-wing policy. This is still a corrupt and out-of-touch Democratic party; the president is an austerity-minded conservative surrounded by advisers plucked from finance and big business; and the only way anything will get done is if Senate Democrats somehow drag their most conservative members over to first vote lockstep in favor of eliminating the filibuster, then voting lockstep for every other piece of legislation they put forward. More than likely, the party establishment will do what it always does and make a point out of shunning and disrespecting the Left, whom they blame for their November downballot drubbing.
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