The Sunday after
We've now had 24 hours to get used to these words: President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris.
The road ahead is still uncertain. We have much work to do. But as others have said, we're on the offense now. We're not fighting rearguard actions to simply maintain our democracy. Now we get to take it to the enemy.
And let me make clear who I think the enemy is. It's not only the wannabe Mussolinis of the Right, but also the Thalmanns of the Left. Even today, before the bliss has worn off, they are talking about "holding Biden accountable."
No. We've just barely pulled out our cookies from the fire. What you do is work constructively with the new Administration. You'll get some things you want. You won't get others. That's called politics. No one gets everything they want all the time. A maximalist position gets you a failed presidency and President Tom Cotton in 2024.
Democrats are returning to the House with a diminished majority. This is due in part to the buzzwords used by the Left during our Summer of Discontent. Even in California, we're seeing some seats we won in 2018 slip back to the GOP—to Darrel fucking Issa, even. Orange County Vietnamese-Americans switched back to majority GOP support because of the Left's braying about socialism. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have a much harder job because of the actions of the Thalmanns, who hope that "After Trump, us". America in 2020 is not Germany in 1932. It's looking for normalcy, not yet another revolution. The sooner that the Left realizes this, and works the political game to get some of what it wants, the better.
Democrats of all stripes have to learn to unify and support the new Administration. The amount of work it will have to engage in in order to restore what was lost is staggering. From racial justice to climate change to repairing our foreign relations, President-elect Biden will have a mountain to climb that even his former boss wasn't saddled with. If the Left really wants to move the needle, it needs to make sure that we can hold and gain seats in 2022, including the Senate. Without the votes, you have no power. You're merely engaging in cosplaying. And President-elect Biden's platform is the most liberal that any Democratic president has had in the modern era. All of the party's factions need to work with him so that the Democratic agenda can move forward, and voters see that Democrats are governing on their behalf and in their best interests.
We won a great victory. But we haven't won the war. Whether we do or not depends on how we comport ourselves in the first year of a Biden Administration. If we bicker and argue, then we'll lose. We're the majority, but barely. A circular firing squad will put us back where we were, or worse.
That being said, I do think that the progressive wing of the party will be team players. But it also needs a new way to couch its rhetoric. If it can do that, if Democrats can show a unified front, we'll be able to go from strength to strength.
Right now the priority is to stabilize the patient and get him out of ICU and on the road to health. Deliver that, and voters will be more willing to listen to other things. It's really how politics should work.