Over the past week, it has become more clear that former Vice President Joe Biden is now President-elect Joe Biden.
The math is simply not working in incumbent President Donald Trump’s favor right now.
He will litigate, and there will be recounts, but nothing indicates irregularities that would amount to flipping the deficits in Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin or Arizona.
This, however, should not be interpreted as a 100% rebuke of President Trump or the Republican party.
In fact, if I’m the GOP, I’ve got to be pretty happy about the results, even if the party’s current leader ends up losing the executive branch.
The Republicans are favored to retain the U.S. Senate.
Thanks to Trump, that same Senate has confirmed numerous federal judges and three conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and most recently Amy Coney Barrett.
The biggest reward, although staunch Trump supporters will be slow to appreciate, is that the party will presumably be shed of the Trump brand.
At least until 2024.
Although the Democrats did a remarkable job of turning out the vote in the nation’s population centers like Detroit, Atlanta, Milwaukee and others, the vast majority of middle America remains red.
Trump will lose the popular vote again in 2020, but he already has over 70 million votes to the 62 million-plus he received in 2016.
That means there is still a high level of satisfaction in the job Trump and the Senate have done over the past four years. This is something Democrats cannot ignore going forward.
The main reason being is that the voters will get to speak their minds again in just two years during the 2022 mid-term elections.
Mid-terms are often costly for the executive branch and can make or break a legislative agenda.
When the presidential race is finally in the rearview mirror, flipping the House will become the main focus of the Republican party.
This, along with the fact that the Senate and the judiciary still stand in the way of Biden’s team keeping some of the campaign’s far-left promises, will force the Biden White House to become more centrist.
At least until after the mid-terms.
For those whose faith in the system rests with Trump winning or losing, this doesn’t mean much, but for most Americans, this is good news.
The American people have thoughtfully utilized the checks and balances the founding fathers built into the Constitution to both oust Trump and leave the GOP with enough power to stop far-left legislation like the Green New Deal.
Another thing to watch during the first two years of the Biden administration will be whether the Democratic party is able to move on from Donald Trump.
Trump, nor his party, were ever able to move on from Barack Obama.
Trashing Obama’s name and dismantling his legacy became an obsession of the president and the GOP over the past four years, which eventually wore thin with moderates and ignited the left.
The Democratic party and the national media’s obsession with Trump has to end at some point during Biden’s first year in office or the same thing will likely happen to the Democrats in 2022 and 2024.
The Democrats will have to resist launching investigations and criminal probes that lead nowhere and waste millions in taxpayer dollars and focus on creating a centrist legacy for Biden and strong economy for the American people.
