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the new administration from hostile oversight. Had Republicans prevailed in the two Georgia runoff races and held on to their Senate majority, they would have bedeviled the Bidenites with investigations and inquiries and all manner of tomfoolery designed to hamper and cripple the executive branch’s ability to get things done. In Trump’s first two years, the only committee to spend any serious time and effort in ways inimical to the president’s interests was the Senate Intelligence – which looked seriously into allegations of Russian collusion. But its work was overshadowed and made pretty much redundant once Robert Mueller began his criminal investigation as a special prosecutor. This is not to say Biden will have an easy go of it on Capitol Hill. Democrats will be friendly, but they do not have sufficient power to effect the changes he would need through legislation. Republicans will likely oppose
The Democratic party’s primacy in Washington, D.C. hangs by a thread, and it’s possible-to-likely that divided government will return in two years’ time after the 2022 midterm elections (assuming the Republican party doesn’t collapse – a possibility that seemed science-fictional before its leader effectively called on people to storm the Capitol and destroy our democracy). But while that thread remains unbroken, the 50-50 split Senate is an unalloyed blessing for the new president. It means two salutary things for him... BIDEN’S BLESSINGS The first, and by far the most important, is that Democrats will control all the committees on Capitol Hill and will (as was true in large measure for the Trump administration in its first two years) protect
American Consequences
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