Free at last, by a hair, with work to do

The outcomes of the two Georgia Senate run-off races run yesterday are dramatic. Democrat Raphael Warnock has won by a hair. Democrat Jon Ossoff is leading with mostly mailed-in absentee ballots, which generally favor the Democrats, remaining to count. The Democrats appear certain to take control of the Senate in addition to the House of Representatives and the White House, enabling Joe Biden to pursue what he promised during the electoral campaign with vigor. The Grim Reaper, aka Mitch McConnell, will lose the capacity to block anything he disikes from reaching the floor of the Senate.

At home, this will mean many things: Trump’s populist ethnic nationalist racism will be discredited, the Republican party may have to retool in a more truly conservative direction, democracy will be able to show that it can govern effectively, and Biden or Kamala Harris can hope to campaign in 2024 with a record of success behind them. Health care, energy, education, income taxes, and many other areas will be opened to reform. There is also the real possibility of terrorist violence by Trump supporters, whose more extremist wing will be gathering today in Washington to protest the certification of the presidential election result in Congress.

The Georgia race had nothing at all to do with international affairs, but its ramifications are significant also abroad. The United States has demonstrated that it could recover from ethnonationalist populism by democratic means. Other countries may follow suit: Hungary? Poland? Israel? Serbia? India? None of their would-be nationalist autocrats are delivering results for their countries’ economies and fights against Covid-19 much better than Trump did in the US. And they all start, as Trump did, down by the percentage of minorities who won’t vote for them. While each country has its own political dynamics, the global tide may have turned.

Also important: Democratic control of the House and Senate will enable Biden to try to defeat Covid-19 and restore the economy without being blocked at every turn by current Senate Majority Leader McConnell. Biden aims to vaccinate 100 million Americans in his first 100 days (which will be mid-April). The vaccine rollout so far has been much slower. The economy, which has recovered about halfway from the depths of the epidemic, is now faltering. The Democrats will use control of Congress to fund both a stronger vaccination effort and payments to lower income people and small businesses as well as safer reopening of schools. If by summer the US is back to steadier economic growth and herd immunity is reached, Biden will be a hero at home and far stronger abroad.

Today though will be devoted not to celebrating the Georgia victory but to defeating Republican attempts to change the electoral votes as they are reported to the Congress. The normally pro forma process will be lengthy and contentious as the certified results from some “battleground” states are debated and voted on. But in the end, the Congress will acknowledge Biden’s victory, removing the final hurdle to his inauguration January 20. We are free at last, by a hair, but with lots of work to do.