Savor the Moment - Victories for Democrats in Senate Races
Joy comes in the morning. Thank you, Georgia. -- Senator-Elect Reverend Raphael Warnock
Although there are still votes to be counted, it is now increasingly apparent that Democrat Chuck Schumer, not Republican Mitch McConnell, will hold the title of Senate Majority Leader.
Georgia’s United States Senators will be Rev. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King Jr.'s former congregation, and Jon Ossoff, whose political career started as a volunteer for Congressman John Lewis. At 33 years of age he will be the youngest person elected to the Senate since... drum roll… Joe Biden in 1973.
Yes, politics fans, an African-American man and a Jewish man just won two elections in the Deep South. Hard work, focused campaigns, and the increasingly erratic behavior of the opposition’s leader all played a role.
https://twitter.com/Yamiche/status/1346811184629088256?s=20
Both Democrats absolutely owe their victory to the political infrastructure and strategy of increasing turnout among the state’s Black, Latino and Asian voters built by Stacy Abrams.
From the New York Times:
As Democrats inched closer to flipping both of Georgia’s Senate seats from the incumbent Republicans, credit began to flow to one person broadly acknowledged as being most responsible for Georgia’s new status as a Democratic state: Stacey Abrams.
Ms. Abrams, the former minority leader of the Georgia state House, has spent a decade building a Democratic political infrastructure in the state, first with her New Georgia Project and now with Fair Fight, the voting rights organization she founded in the wake of her losing campaign for governor in 2018.
Late Tuesday night, Ms. Abrams came close to declaring victory in a tweet that praised the thousands of “organizers, volunteers, canvassers & tireless groups” who helped rebuild the state’s Democratic Party from the rump it was when she became the state House minority leader in 2011.
The winning Senate candidates ran on health care and a new civil rights act, running in the mold of John Lewis, the progressive advocate, not Sam Nunn, the long-time blue dog.
https://twitter.com/larrywilmore/status/1346688948832112640?s=20
Grassroots political organizations from around the United States provided a counter-balance to the efforts of Georgia's longtime GOP establishment influence.
Hundreds of Indivisible chapters, including those in San Diego, sent postcards to voters, made get out the vote phone calls, and provided resources for both campaigns. (I know more that 300 postcards left my house)
https://twitter.com/anna_bahr/status/1346225129349550081?s=20
The upper chamber will be technically split 50-50 with Republicans, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaker for simple majority votes. She will be referred to as “Madam President” when presiding over the Senate.
Let’s savor that phrase for a second... “President Kamala Harris.”
https://twitter.com/Greene_DM/status/1346840862203006979?s=20
Although there are no guarantees about what parts of the Biden/Harris legislative agenda will be ratified, Democrats will at least be able to decide what bills make it to the Senate floor, as well as be able to more easily confirm cabinet appointments and judicial nominees.
This, by itself, is huge.
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1346826021878829056?s=20
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Will this victory be the beginning of the end for Trumpism?
I’d certainly bet on lots of Republicans in disarray headlines in coming days. There will be violence on the streets of Washington DC this week as the wingnut faction of the party melts down. We can only hope they spend as much time fighting each other (conspiracy types are big on finger pointing) as they do trashing monuments and historical sites in the nation’s capital.
From NBC News:
Online forums popular with conservatives and far-right activists have been filled in recent days with threats and expectations of violence ahead of a planned protest in Washington on Wednesday to coincide with congressional certification of the election.
In anticipation of possible violence, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser has asked residents to stay away from the downtown area where protesters will be marching. Every city police officer will be on duty, and the National Guard has been mobilized.
"In regards to the protests planned for January 6th, the violent rhetoric we're seeing online is at a new level," said Daniel J. Jones, president of Advance Democracy Inc., a global research organization that studies disinformation and extremism. "There are endorsements of violence across all of the platforms."
At 79, Mitch McConnell’s era is over. Despite his best efforts as the Trump Presidency was sinking, the party has split.
Here’s Kerry Eleveld at Daily Kos:
In his relentless pursuit of power and securing a lasting legacy in the courts, McConnell happily abandoned his oath of office and any inkling of patriotism to play footsie with Trump throughout his grotesque tenure as de facto head of the GOP. In fact, McConnell helped clear the way for Trump's corrupt elevation to office when he refused to sign on to a bipartisan statement revealing Russian interference in the 2016 election. When Trump declared neo-Nazis "very fine people" in 2017, McConnell led Republicans in declining to condemn the comments. And after a mountain of evidence showed Trump had extorted the leader of Ukraine in his bid to smear a political rival and win reelection, McConnell lined up the Republican votes to acquit Trump of impeachment charges without hearing from a single witness in the Senate.
So when it came time for McConnell to shoot down Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election results before it blossomed into a full-blown coup attempt, it came as no surprise that McConnell spent more than five weeks diddling around before finally acknowledging Joe Biden as the country's rightful president-elect.
But now, suddenly, as McConnell faces a return to the Senate minority, he and his allies apparently think it's time to wipe off that Trump stench and start anew.
"Emotions running high among McConnell-aligned Republicans early Wednesday am — after reality of what transpired in Georgia settled in," National Journal columnist Josh Kraushaar tweeted early Wednesday morning. "May be the heat of the moment, but mood is for declaring war on Team Trump. Want to marginalize Trump as they marginalized Steve Bannon in 2017."
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