Amidst Joe Biden’s presidential victory over Donald Trump, one key storyline of the 2020 election remained relatively quiet: the Democratic Party’s failure in congressional races. While the Democrats hold onto the majority in the House of Representatives by a slim margin, control of the Senate has come down to two runoff elections in Georgia, with Republican incumbent Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue competing against Democratic challengers Raphael Warnock and David Ossoff, respectively.
As both Democrats and Republicans work to mobilize Georgia voters in the runoffs, the GOP continues to insinuate that President Biden and a Democratic majority in the Senate would give in to a far-left, socialist state. Perdue often refers to Ossoff as a socialist, while Loeffler accused Warnock of holding a Marxist ideology.
Republican leadership cannot be allowed to gaslight the American public with buzzwords of “socialism” and the “radical left” in order to reject Warnock and Ossoff’s campaigns.
First, Ossoff and Warnock are among more moderate politicians in the Democratic Party, despite what Perdue and Loeffler proclaim. Ossoff has repeatedly clarified that he does not support central progressive goals, including packing the Supreme Court or defunding the police. Warnock’s platform emphasizes his plan to build upon the Affordable Care Act and rejoin the Paris Climate Accords, without mention of either Medicare for All or the Green New Deal. Regardless of whether you want those progressive policies, we should at least recognize where Ossoff and Warnock actually are on the political spectrum instead of the radical image that their opponents contend.
But even if Ossoff and Warnock become more progressive than anticipated upon taking office, elections — the most fundamental check on political radicalism — still bind Democrats to moderation. Were Democrats to win both runoffs, they still only hold a 50-50 majority with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote. Rushing through unpopular legislation would be a surefire way to lose that majority in 2022, and Democrats are well-aware of their congressional weaknesses with progressive messaging. Democratic senators with conservative electorates, such as Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Krysten Sinema (D-Ariz.), may not join their liberal colleagues in such legislation either.
Rather, the narrative around Georgia’s runoffs should be that McConnell’s possible retention of the Senate majority would ensure four years of political gridlock — not just of progressive legislation, but of basic governmental functions. Consider McConnell’s Senate under the Obama administration after the GOP swung nine Senate seats to take the majority in the 2014 midterms. Not only did GOP senators block Judge Merrick Garland’s nomination for months, they also obstructed the confirmation of tens of federal judges, leaving vacancies open for Trump to fill. Legislatively, McConnell has also weaponized the filibuster to subvert any and all Senate bills that deviate from his conservative agenda, delaying critical pieces of legislation, such as the Dodd-Frank Act and the DREAM Act.
In reality, the relevant dichotomy around Georgia’s runoff elections is not even between the “radical left” and moderate compromise, as Loeffler and Perdue would like to argue. As Georgia residents prepare for a second round of voting on January 5, voters should consider whether they want more years of a dysfunctional Senate — a Senate chained by a majority leader who prefers legislative paralysis over popularly-supported Democratic bills.
Image Credit: “GH_5254” by raphael390 is marked with CC PDM 1.0
