Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans succeeded in bouncing 74-year-old President Donald Trump out of office but promises of a “Blue Wave” never materialized. Former Vice President Joe Biden, 77, got no coattails, meaning the national vote was against Trump, not for him. When you consider how the Covid-19 crisis tainted the 2020 election, denying Trump a second term, Democrats still thought they’d increase majorities in the House and take over the U.S. Senate. Neither happened because the vote against Trump was not really a vote for Biden, just signal that voters were done with Trump. Biden was viewed as the least objectionable Democrat candidate, serving a purpose of getting rid of Trump. Losing at least six seats in the House reflects directly on 80-year-old House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, long overdue for retirement, not particularly liked by anyone.
Pelosi was a good foil against Trump, as were House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.), both worked Trump over in the impeachment fiasco. Pelosi relished her role as Trump nemesis but the public, Democrats and Republicans, grew tired of her vendetta with Trump, at the expense of the country. Apart from the six outright losses, 13 other House Democrats are at risk of losing their seats in Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Iowa, Virginia and California. Usually with the big presidential win, you’d expect some coattail effect, with the President-elect’s Party picking up seats. That didn’t happen Nov. 3, attesting to voters essentially fatigued with Covid-19 and its economic fallout. Biden remains one state away from declaring victory, with Trump losing more ground in Pennsylvania.
Losing seats in Illinois, Ohio and Texas, Pelosi finds herself under some pressure to retire, though it’s not clear Biden wants that. Pelosi took an all-or-nothing approach to negotiations with Trump on a new stimulus bill, something unemployed workers and struggling businesses needed but didn’t get. Wall Street has rallied the last two sessions, more related to last week’s sell-off than any promising economic trends. With a stimulus bill not in the cards, more selling could be close at hand, as investors start discounting the Biden economy into the market. Democrats picked up 41 seats in the 2018 Midterm election, potentially losing up to 19 seats. Voters showed affinity for adding GOP seats, maybe in reaction to progressive voices like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who won reelection easily, as did her liberal colleagues Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.).
Pelosi’s claim-to-fame in this election cycle will be the defeat of Trump, no small feat when you consider his breakneck campaign after recovering from Covid-19. Pelosi kept Trump in the crosshairs with her impeachment, creating more bad publicity for Trump before acquitted in the U.S. Senate Feb. 5. While the outcome was known by all in the Senate, Pelosi went ahead with the impeachment, claiming an unknown whistleblower heard Trump making an inappropriate deal with 42-year-old Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky. How ironic that Trump asked Zelensky if he knew anything about corruption by Joe and his son Hunter. Can you imagine that? Then the bombshells were dropped by the New York Post and former Hunter Biden’s business partner Tony Bobulinksi. Biden’s campaign made a deal with mainstream press to censor the potentially campaign-ending news story.
So, after nearly four years accusing Trump of colluding with Russia, Joe Biden, his son Hunter and brother James turned out to be the corrupt ones, raking in millions for the Biden family from China, Russia and Ukraine. Can you imagine, the biggest story of the 2020 campaign was dismissed by Biden as “Russian disinformation,” the favorite excuse used by the intel community to go after Trump? Just think it was former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “Steele Dossier” that was used by the FBI to persecute Trump for four years. Hillary certainly has the last laugh watching Trump go down to Biden, when her scandal was small potatoes compared to Joe’s. Yet after eight years of Obama fatigue, Trump pounced on the opportunity, shaking things up for the last four years. Ultimately, with race riots sweeping American streets, and Democrats branding Trump a racist, Trump took a hard fall.
Bottom line with the House, they still retain a strong majority, keeping all majority assignments in important committees. Even if Senate Republicans wanted to go after Joe for undeniable evidence of corruption, Biden’s new Attorney General would never let it happen. How ironic that the Democrat Party ranted-and-railed against Atty. Gen. William Barr practically accusing him of Trump’s lapdog, when Barr never indicted any of the key players on the Obamagate scandal, letting the former White House, FBI, National Security Agency investigate Trump for alleged Russian collusion. No House Committee would investigate Biden for anything, essentially getting away with one of the biggest scandals in U.S. history. Democrats and their friends in the press censored the story, leaving it to die on the vine. Now that Biden’s almost President-elect, where’s the rule of law?
