Nik said:
The thing that remains baffling to me, when looking at this post mortem, is that there seems to be some real lessons here about the dangers of extremism for the GOP politically. Loeffler literally ran on "I'm the most Conservative senator in the entire GOP with a 100% pro-Trump voting record" while both Democratic Senators did whatever they could to appeal to suburban voters with Warnock, who is legitimately a radical preacher in the best sense of things filming his ads about just being a regular dog-walking suburban dude.
Despite this I'm not seeing any sort of "We need to appeal to the middle and moderates" from any Republicans in real authority. Now, I realize that any Republican with real authority in the Trump era is going to be categorized mainly by their tenuous connection to reality and willing to buy into GOP extremism but after a pretty devastating election where the GOP lost the House, Senate and Presidency you'd think there'd be at least be some strategic reflection.
Honestly I think they are just banking on the usual stupid voter base thing to happen. Biden is going to pass a crap load of stimulus because it's essential to fix the incompetence and neglect of the last 4 years. The debt will be huge and stupid voters will blame Biden for the faults of the Republicans.
While the Democrats to the Presidency, Senate and held on to the house at the end of the day the Republicans still hold 52% of the State legislators to the Democrats 47%. Gerrymandering is still on the table and I don't think the Republicans took enough of a beatdown to make them think they lost because they were wrong in how they approach governance.
I think its fantasy to think that when Trump goes away we see any sort of reform because this is all just natural progression from stuff that has been doing on since Reagan, and the blatant public support of crazy since the Tea Party became a thing.
I mean its great that the Democrats eeked out wins against two awful people. But Stacy Abrams did some phenomenal grass roots work to get the vote out particularly in the African American community and we are still talking about barely beating two senators who pilfered money the entire time they were in office, did absolutely nothing for their communities and are running for the party that isn't shutting down coup attempts.
I think its great that Biden and Harris will get a fair shake to get their platform across. I think its great that there is going to be a better opportunity for the more progressive voice of the Democrats to expect some of their platform to be taken into legislation because you don't have to put outright poison pills to get McConnell to bring it up for a vote, but I'm still very leery of 2022.
