The Democratic takeover is nearly complete

In the days following the US presidential election in November, political centrists reached a hasty verdict. Never mind all the squabbling about voter fraud — they had won. The extremes had lost. Donald Trump, the maniac, was out; Joe Biden, the moderate, was in.

Yes, the increasingly radical Democratic party still controlled the House of Representatives, but as long as the Republicans won one of two Senate run-off races in Georgia in January, the crazies would be checked by a Republican majority in the Senate. The markets rallied. All was well in establishment la-la land, despite the pandemic.

Well, guess what? On Wednesday morning, it became clear that the Democrats had won both those Georgia races. Rev Raphael Warnock, a Baptist pastor, defeated the Grand Old Party’s Kelly Loeffler and will become Georgia’s first black Senator. And Jon Ossoff, a 33-year-old former documentary filmmaker, appeared to have unseated right-wing businessman David Perdue. Both races were extraordinarily close, and will be disputed — that’s American democracy these days. Yet the almost inevitable result, assuming Trump doesn’t magically undo the Electoral College process in the coming days, is that the Senate will now be split 50-50. All hail Kamala Harris, the incoming vice-president, who will also serve as Senate president and therefore cast the decisive vote on all the most controversial legislation.

The Democrats will control the executive and the legislative branches of government. All that stands in the way of a left-wing takeover of the most powerful country in the world is a doddery 78-year-old president who never had any firm convictions. Oh, there’s the conservative-majority Supreme Court, but the Democrats can now vote to ‘pack’ that venerable institution, appointing enough justices to make sure the judiciary supports its agenda.

Perdue accused his opponent of being endorsed by the Communist party, which was right-wing hyperbole.