Realignment

If Jon Ossoff holds on and retains his slender lead in the Peach State over the odious David Perdue, Democrats, Raphael Warnock already having been declared the victor over the poisonous plutocrat Kelly Loeffler, will have accomplished something significant, control of the U.S. Senate, and with it, control of Congress.

With septuagenarian Joe Biden White House bound, unless, of course, Trump pulls off a coup, Democrats will control the national government for the first time in a decade.

Before asking what such a government portends I think it's important to declare, post-Georgia runoff, that we are in the middle of a historic political realignment.

The genius of Trump is his ability to win the votes of the old, weird America, the rural bedrock of the nation mostly ignored by Madison Avenue and inside the beltway. But the problem here is that consistent appeals to this voting bloc cuts against the grain of the historically GOP suburbs, which are college educated, nominally socially progressive and peopled by viewers of CNN. According to a GOP insider:

“Suburbs, my friends, the suburbs,” said Josh Holmes, a Republican strategist and former chief of staff to Mr. McConnell. “I feel like a one trick pony but here we are again. We went from talking about jobs and the economy to Qanon election conspiracies in 4 short years and — as it turns out — they were listening!”

Meanwhile Democrats, with their adherence to the neo-McCarthyism of Russiagate, which requires a tight embrace of the Intelligence Community, have swung to the right. This swing to the right has exposed the irrelevance of the Bernie wing of the party. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are sticking with Trump, leading me to believe that Trumpism has legs.

Going forward what we need to watch for is whether Trump can maintain hold of the GOP; for the Democrats, whether the whole progressive charade of the Squad and Justice Democrats can maintain the allegiance of the left wing of the party.