Democrats now have their best opportunity in a decade to shape the American political agenda, having achieved the coveted trifecta of political power in Washington — first the House of Representatives, then the White House and now the U.S. Senate.
A surprise double victory in two Georgia run-off races on Tuesday has allowed them to claw their way to the narrowest possible Senate advantage.
While Raphael Warnock, a pastor at Martin Luther King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, was declared the winner of his seat early Wednesday, the other race — won by fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff — wasn’t called until the late afternoon just as the nation’s attention was on the violent protests at the U.S. Capitol.
The chamber will soon be tied 50-50, which is an imperceptible margin but one that offers incalculable advantages to Joe Biden’s presidency.
WATCH | How the protests at the Capitol unfolded:
CBC News’ David Common breaks down what happened on Capitol Hill on Wednesday and how U.S. President Donald Trump stoked discontent among his supporters before he lost the election. 3:44
‘A brand new day’
What it means, for starters, is that Kamala Harris, in her next job as vice-president, will frequently roll down Pennsylvania Avenue in motorcade trips to her former workplace, the U.S. Senate, to cast critical tie-breaking votes.
That gives Democrats more control than at any time since they lost congressional seats early in the Obama administration.
“A brand new day,” is how Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, described the effect in a celebratory statement Wednesday morning.
While the races were both close and the Republican candidates have not yet conceded, Schumer treated the result as a fait accompli and promised bold change.
Democrats won two Georgia seats they had lost by margins of 14 and eight per cent the last time they were up for grabs.
Raphael Warnock, left, and Jon Ossoff won their run-off races in Georgia Tuesday, giving Democrats a thin advantage in the upper chamber. (Megan Varner/Getty Images, Brian Snyder/Reuters)
It is the first time Democrats have unseated a Republican Senate incumbent in Georgia in decades, helped by sky-high participation among African-American voters in Atlanta and more modest turnout in whiter, more conservative rural areas.
Winning the Senate launches Biden into the presidency on Jan. 20 with freer rein in various areas. Passing bills will be simpler — though considerably short of a slam dunk.
Appointing judges will be easier, as will naming cabinet members, top officials and diplomats, with little fear they’d be blocked.
Biden can also live without fear of hostile congressional committees. Republicans who had been investigating his son Hunter’s business dealings will no longer control investigative bodies on Capitol Hill, which will now be run by Democrats and presumably used to advance the party’s own goals.
WATCH | Raphael Warnock makes history in winning Georgia Senate seat:
Raphael Warnock won one of Georgia’s two Senate run-offs, becoming the first Black senator in his state’s history and putting the Senate majority within the party’s reach. Fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff claimed victory in the other race, which some news organizations say is too close to call. 7:43
Republican recriminations ahead?
Republicans, meanwhile, are spiralling into the early innings of what could be a protracted intra-partisan feud.
At the centre of that tussle lies President Donald Trump.
Before the results even emerged in those two tight Senate races, several Republicans — including one of Georgia’s top Republican election officials — blamed the president for the defeat.
Although he campaigned on behalf of the Republican candidates in the Georgia Senate run-offs, U.S. President Donald Trump cast doubt on the legitimacy of voting and likely depressed Republican turnout, said one Georgia election official. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)
Gabe Sterling said Trump depressed turnout by complaining incessantly about his fellow Republicans, by insisting the presidential vote was fraudulent and bemoaning their refusal to help him overturn it.
“President Donald J. Trump,” Sterling said Wednesday, when asked why Republicans lost.
“When you say, ‘Your vote doesn’t count,’ then you have [allies] who … say, ‘Don’t come and vote.’ Then you spark a civil war within the GOP that needed to be united to get through a tough fight like this.… It irritates me.”
More recriminations will likely follow.
Trump has fired back by blaming the party establishment. He suggests the races may have been lost because Senate Republicans refused to send people $2,000 stimulus cheques, as demanded by Trump and by Democrats.
“Your leadership has led you down the tubes,” Trump said in a grievance-filled speech Wednesday to a large crowd of supporters gathered in Washington, D.C., to protest the election certification.
“I said, ‘Give [people] $2,000. … Give ’em a couple of bucks. Let ’em live.'”
Trump can fairly point out that he did attend two rallies to help the state’s Republican candidates, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
Trump did attend rallies for Republican candidates Kelly Loeffler, left, and David Perdue, right, but his own grievances over the presidential election result overshadowed the events. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
Yet both events were overshadowed by Trump’s personal grievances. The most memorable moments of his Georgia rally speech this week included Trump demanding that his vice-president, Mike Pence, overturn the presidential result, and threatening to support a primary challenge in 2022 to unseat the state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp.
Some Trump supporters made clear in interviews that, like the president, their minds were more focused on re-fighting the Nov. 3 election than the ones on Jan. 5.
What a majority can accomplish
While the vast majority of Republican voters did, in the end, turn out for Tuesday’s races, they did so in fewer numbers than Democrats.
Democrats benefited from huge participation from African-American voters, who helped elect Warnock and Ossoff, a documentary filmmaker and political staffer who at age 33 will become the youngest Democratic senator elected since Biden himself first won in 1972.
The result is that Democrats have a chance to implement their agenda. Or at least to try.
New York Democrat Chuck Schumer will be the new majority leader of the U.S. Senate. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)
Biden’s party now has an ability it previously lacked — it can actually hold votes on its chosen issues, like pandemic stimulus cheques, expanded health coverage, green infrastructure, immigration, gun control and political reform.
One great power held by the Senate’s majority party is the ability to control the floor agenda and decide what gets voted on. That’s why some Democrats grudgingly referred to Republican Mitch McConnell as the gatekeeper blocking debates.
Now, the role of majority leader will belong to Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat who, while often criticized by progressives, holds considerably more liberal views than McConnell. (Schumer is also a frequent critic of Canadian dairy.)
“Joe Biden has a reasonably good shot of getting changes he wants to see enacted,” said Charles Bullock, an expert on legislative politics at the University of Georgia, before the vote, of the implications of a Democratic sweep.
“[Many of their goals] depend on having a Democratic majority.”
A 1-seat majority has its limitations
Here comes the caveat. And it’s a significant one.
Passing bills won’t be easy. Most types of bills in the U.S. Senate require 60 votes for adoption.
Many Democrats want to water down that rule as part of a sweeping institution-modernization agenda — one that includes adding liberal judges to the Supreme Court and making Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico new U.S. states, with voting rights in Congress.
That type of institutional reform stands a slim chance of success. Some Democrats, like West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, have already expressed clear opposition to these ideas, and given the wafer-thin margin in the Senate, losing even one vote would likely bury these measures.
Let me be clear: I will not vote to pack the courts & I will not vote to end the filibuster. The U.S. Senate is the most deliberative body in the world. It was made so that we work together in a bipartisan way. If you get rid of the filibuster, there’s no reason to have a Senate. <a href=”https://t.co/g0fasdzVmt”>pic.twitter.com/g0fasdzVmt</a>
Yet Democrats now have other, narrower paths to passing bills. For starters, they can bring votes to the floor and hope to win a few Republican backers.
If that fails, there are budget bills.
It’s possible to pass certain spending legislation in the Senate with a one-vote majority. It involves a complicated process known as reconciliation — and has been applied dozens of times since 1980, including on key provisions of the so-called Obamacare health reform and Trump’s tax cuts.
“You can do a lot of things through reconciliation,” said Tony Madonna, a political scientist at the University of Georgia.
The tactic does have limitations. It can only be used once a year, and only on budget bills, and the measures usually expire after 10 years.
But a pair of surprising wins in Georgia at least give Biden’s party a chance to try it.
The news that Democrats had sealed both run-off races was largely drowned out by the day of violent protests at the U.S. Capitol. (Julio Cortez/Associated Press)
NEW YORK (AP) — In a new video posted early Election Day, Beyoncé channels Pamela Anderson in the television program “Baywatch” – red one-piece swimsuit and all – and asks viewers to vote.
In the two-and-a-half-minute clip, set to most of “Bodyguard,” a four-minute cut from her 2024 country album “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé cosplays as Anderson’s character before concluding with a simple message, written in white text: “Happy Beylloween,” followed by “Vote.”
At a rally for Donald Trump in Pittsburgh on Monday night, the former president spoke dismissively about Beyoncé’s appearance at a Kamala Harris rally in Houston in October, drawing boos for the megastar from his supporters.
“Beyoncé would come in. Everyone’s expecting a couple of songs. There were no songs. There was no happiness,” Trump said.
She did not perform — unlike in 2016, when she performed at a presidential campaign rally for Hillary Clinton in Cleveland – but she endorsed Harris and gave a moving speech, initially joined onstage by her Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland.
“I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said.
“A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we’re not divided,” she said at the rally in Houston, her hometown.
“Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what’s possible with no ceilings, no limitations,” she continued. “We must vote, and we need you.”
Harris used the song in July during her first official public appearance as a presidential candidate at her campaign headquarters in Delaware. That same month, Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, publicly endorsed Harris for president.
Beyoncé gave permission to Harris to use the song, a campaign official who was granted anonymity to discuss private campaign operations confirmed to The Associated Press.
Outside of sports and a “Cold front coming down from Canada,” American news media only report on Canadian events that they believe are, or will be, influential to the US. Therefore, when Justin Trudeau’s announcement, having finally read the room, that Canada will be reducing the number of permanent residents admitted by more than 20 percent and temporary residents like skilled workers and college students will be cut by more than half made news south of the border, I knew the American media felt Trudeau’s about-face on immigration was newsworthy because many Americans would relate to Trudeau realizing Canada was accepting more immigrants than it could manage and are hoping their next POTUS will follow Trudeau’s playbook.
Canada, with lots of space and lacking convenient geographical ways for illegal immigrants to enter the country, though still many do, has a global reputation for being incredibly accepting of immigrants. On the surface, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver appear to be multicultural havens. However, as the saying goes, “Too much of a good thing is never good,” resulting in a sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, which you can almost taste in the air. A growing number of Canadians, regardless of their political affiliation, are blaming recent immigrants for causing the housing affordability crises, inflation, rise in crime and unemployment/stagnant wages.
Throughout history, populations have engulfed themselves in a tribal frenzy, a psychological state where people identify strongly with their own group, often leading to a ‘us versus them’ mentality. This has led to quick shifts from complacency to panic and finger-pointing at groups outside their tribe, a phenomenon that is not unique to any particular culture or time period.
My take on why the American news media found Trudeau’s blatantly obvious attempt to save his political career, balancing appeasement between the pitchfork crowd, who want a halt to immigration until Canada gets its house in order, and immigrant voters, who traditionally vote Liberal, newsworthy; the American news media, as do I, believe immigration fatigue is why Kamala Harris is going to lose on November 5th.
Because they frequently get the outcome wrong, I don’t take polls seriously. According to polls in 2014, Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives and Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals were in a dead heat in Ontario, yet Wynne won with more than twice as many seats. In the 2018 Quebec election, most polls had the Coalition Avenir Québec with a 1-to-5-point lead over the governing Liberals. The result: The Coalition Avenir Québec enjoyed a landslide victory, winning 74 of 125 seats. Then there’s how the 2016 US election polls showing Donald Trump didn’t have a chance of winning against Hillary Clinton were ridiculously way off, highlighting the importance of the election day poll and, applicable in this election as it was in 2016, not to discount ‘shy Trump supporters;’ voters who support Trump but are hesitant to express their views publicly due to social or political pressure.
My distrust in polls aside, polls indicate Harris is leading by a few points. One would think that Trump’s many over-the-top shenanigans, which would be entertaining were he not the POTUS or again seeking the Oval Office, would have him far down in the polls. Trump is toe-to-toe with Harris in the polls because his approach to the economy—middle-class Americans are nostalgic for the relatively strong economic performance during Trump’s first three years in office—and immigration, which Americans are hyper-focused on right now, appeals to many Americans. In his quest to win votes, Trump is doing what anyone seeking political office needs to do: telling the people what they want to hear, strategically using populism—populism that serves your best interests is good populism—to evoke emotional responses. Harris isn’t doing herself any favours, nor moving voters, by going the “But, but… the orange man is bad!” route, while Trump cultivates support from “weird” marginal voting groups.
To Harris’s credit, things could have fallen apart when Biden abruptly stepped aside. Instead, Harris quickly clinched the nomination and had a strong first few weeks, erasing the deficit Biden had given her. The Democratic convention was a success, as was her acceptance speech. Her performance at the September 10th debate with Donald Trump was first-rate.
Harris’ Achilles heel is she’s now making promises she could have made and implemented while VP, making immigration and the economy Harris’ liabilities, especially since she’s been sitting next to Biden, watching the US turn into the circus it has become. These liabilities, basically her only liabilities, negate her stance on abortion, democracy, healthcare, a long-winning issue for Democrats, and Trump’s character. All Harris has offered voters is “feel-good vibes” over substance. In contrast, Trump offers the tangible political tornado (read: steamroll the problems Americans are facing) many Americans seek. With Trump, there’s no doubt that change, admittedly in a messy fashion, will happen. If enough Americans believe the changes he’ll implement will benefit them and their country…
The case against Harris on immigration, at a time when there’s a huge global backlash to immigration, even as the American news media are pointing out, in famously immigrant-friendly Canada, is relatively straightforward: During the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration, illegal Southern border crossings increased significantly.
The words illegal immigration, to put it mildly, irks most Americans. On the legal immigration front, according to Forbes, most billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants. Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, to name three, have immigrants as CEOs. Immigrants, with tech skills and an entrepreneurial thirst, have kept America leading the world. I like to think that Americans and Canadians understand the best immigration policy is to strategically let enough of these immigrants in who’ll increase GDP and tax base and not rely on social programs. In other words, Americans and Canadians, and arguably citizens of European countries, expect their governments to be more strategic about immigration.
The days of the words on a bronze plaque mounted inside the Statue of Liberty pedestal’s lower level, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” are no longer tolerated. Americans only want immigrants who’ll benefit America.
Does Trump demagogue the immigration issue with xenophobic and racist tropes, many of which are outright lies, such as claiming Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets? Absolutely. However, such unhinged talk signals to Americans who are worried about the steady influx of illegal immigrants into their country that Trump can handle immigration so that it’s beneficial to the country as opposed to being an issue of economic stress.
In many ways, if polls are to be believed, Harris is paying the price for Biden and her lax policies early in their term. Yes, stimulus spending quickly rebuilt the job market, but at the cost of higher inflation. Loosen border policies at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment was increasing was a gross miscalculation, much like Trudeau’s immigration quota increase, and Biden indulging himself in running for re-election should never have happened.
If Trump wins, Democrats will proclaim that everyone is sexist, racist and misogynous, not to mention a likely White Supremacist, and for good measure, they’ll beat the “voter suppression” button. If Harris wins, Trump supporters will repeat voter fraud—since July, Elon Musk has tweeted on Twitter at least 22 times about voters being “imported” from abroad—being widespread.
Regardless of who wins tomorrow, Americans need to cool down; and give the divisive rhetoric a long overdue break. The right to an opinion belongs to everyone. Someone whose opinion differs from yours is not by default sexist, racist, a fascist or anything else; they simply disagree with you. Americans adopting the respectful mindset to agree to disagree would be the best thing they could do for the United States of America.
PHOENIX (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent proponent of debunked public health claims whom Donald Trump has promised to put in charge of health initiatives, said Saturday that Trump would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office if elected president.
Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.
Kennedy made the declaration Saturday on the social media platform X alongside a variety of claims about the heath effects of fluoride.
“On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” Kennedy wrote. Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, “want to Make America Healthy Again,” he added, repeating a phrase Trump often uses and links to Kennedy.
Trump told NBC News on Sunday that he had not spoken to Kennedy about fluoride yet, “but it sounds OK to me. You know it’s possible.”
The former president declined to say whether he would seek a Cabinet role for Kennedy, a job that would require Senate confirmation, but added, “He’s going to have a big role in the administration.”
Asked whether banning certain vaccines would be on the table, Trump said he would talk to Kennedy and others about that. Trump described Kennedy as “a very talented guy and has strong views.”
The sudden and unexpected weekend social media post evoked the chaotic policymaking that defined Trump’s White House tenure, when he would issue policy declarations on Twitter at virtually all hours. It also underscored the concerns many experts have about Kennedy, who has long promoted debunked theories about vaccine safety, having influence over U.S. public health.
In 1950, federal officials endorsed water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay, and continued to promote it even after fluoride toothpaste brands hit the market several years later. Though fluoride can come from a number of sources, drinking water is the main source for Americans, researchers say.
Officials lowered their recommendation for drinking water fluoride levels in 2015 to address a tooth condition called fluorosis, that can cause splotches on teeth and was becoming more common in U.S. kids.
In August, a federal agency determined “with moderate confidence” that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. The National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water.
A federal judge later cited that study in ordering the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in drinking water. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen cautioned that it’s not certain that the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing lower IQ in kids, but he concluded that mounting research points to an unreasonable risk that it could be. He ordered the EPA to take steps to lower that risk, but didn’t say what those measures should be.
In his X post Saturday, Kennedy tagged Michael Connett, the lead attorney representing the plaintiff in that lawsuit, the environmental advocacy group Food & Water Watch.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine organization has a lawsuit pending against news organizations including The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy is on leave from the group but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
What role Kennedy might hold if Trump wins on Tuesday remains unclear. Kennedy recently told NewsNation that Trump asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and some agencies under the Department of Agriculture.
But for now, the former independent presidential candidate has become one of Trump’s top surrogates. Trump frequently mentions having the support of Kennedy, a scion of a Democratic dynasty and the son of former Attorney General Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy traveled with Trump Friday and spoke at his rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Trump said Saturday that he told Kennedy: “You can work on food, you can work on anything you want” except oil policy.
“He wants health, he wants women’s health, he wants men’s health, he wants kids, he wants everything,” Trump added.
