"This nation has long drawn strength from immigration, and providing asylum is an important expression of America’s national values."

But Congress has failed to provide the necessary resources to welcome those who are eligible and to turn away those who are not. Instead, overwhelmed immigration officials allow nearly everyone to stay temporarily, imposing enormous short-term costs on states and cities that the federal government hasn’t done enough to mitigate...."

Writes The Editorial Board of The New York Times, in "The Cost of Inaction on Immigration."

"The country has already seen the consequences of keeping legal immigration artificially low.... The asylum program was never meant to be a vehicle for large-scale immigration and still needs an overhaul, as this board has argued. Then there is the question of how to support those who have already arrived in the United States. It’s also difficult to find political heroes here.... It’s been a decade since Congress has seriously considered immigration reform. Both parties have missed opportunities to do so, the Democrats most recently at the end of 2022.... Until Congress decides to take meaningful action, America will continue to pay a price."

Matt Gaetz lambastes McCarthy: "Mr. Speaker, you are out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role."

Text:

"[State voting] laws — like that recently passed in Georgia — are far from the nightmares that Dems have described, and contain some expansion of access to voting."

"Georgians, and Americans in general, overwhelmingly support voter ID laws, for example. Such laws poll strongly even among allegedly disenfranchised African-Americans — whose turnout in 2012, following a wave of ID laws, actually exceeded whites’ in the re-election of a black president. In fact, the normalization of ID in everyday life has only increased during the past year of vax-card requirements — a policy pushed by Democrats. And Biden did something truly dumb this week: he cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election in November now that his proposal for a federal overhaul has failed: 'I’m not going to say it’s going to be legit.' No sitting president should do this, ever. But when one party is still insisting that the entire election system was rigged last time in a massive conspiracy to overturn a landslide victory for Trump, the other party absolutely needs to draw a sharp line. Biden fatefully blurred that distinction, and took the public focus off the real danger: not voter suppression but election subversion, of the kind we are now discovering Trump, Giuliani and many others plotted during the transition period.... And why have they wildly inflated the threat to election security and engaged in the disgusting demagoguery of calling this 'Jim Crow 2.0'? The WSJ this week tracked down various unsavory GOP bills to suppress or subvert voting in three states — three states Obama singled out for criticism — and found that they had already died in committee. To argue as Biden did last week in Georgia that the goal of Republicans is 'to turn the will of the voters into a mere suggestion — something states can respect or ignore,' is to add hyperbole to distortion...."

Writes Andrew Sullivan, in "How Biden Lost The Plot/Listening to interest groups and activists is no way to get re-elected" (Substack).

"I'm from West Virginia. I'm not where they're from and they can just beat the living crap out of people and think they’ll be submissive."

 

ADDED: Whatever they say publicly I will test against the hypothesis that making it all about Manchin is political theater, designed to concentrate the blame where it will not hurt other Democrats, moderate Democrats, while they gain the opportunity to edit the excessively left-wing material out of the bill.

AND: Here's how WaPo is following the unfolding events this morning: "Liberal lawmakers don’t want to talk about scaling back their ambitions to revive some of what Joe Manchin killed." Oh, really?

The intense frustration emanating from the most liberal members of Congress adds an extra layer of complication for the White House and Democratic leaders who are scrambling to find a path forward to save some of the roughly $2 trillion domestic policy bill Manchin torpedoed over the weekend.

Torpoedoes and emanations! What will happen next?! All these layers.... layers of complication. It's a long story but it's rather boring and obvious.

"The breakdown comes at an especially difficult moment for Biden, whose struggle to fight the pandemic, rising inflation and supply chain problems were already gathering into a year-end maelstrom."

"Now he also faces an uproar once again in his own party. Democratic infighting was on full display on Sunday, undercutting efforts to project unity ahead of what many in the party privately believe will be an electoral wipeout. And liberal leaders who hoped to realize their longtime policy goals and campaign on the initiatives in the social spending plan were furious.... Rather than seeking to defuse hostilities as some Democrats had hoped, the White House lashed out at Manchin... [saying] that if he walks away from the talks, he would be breaking his word to Biden.... Democrats on Sunday began contemplating the far-reaching consequences. The social spending bill would make historic investments in curtailing global warming, expanding Medicare benefits and offering access to prekindergarten for all American children, among other things. Now there are new questions about how or even if Biden will be able to deliver on any of those fronts, all at a moment when the president and his party had initially hoped to reflect on a productive year and gear up for the midterms. In particular, the possibility of no legislative action on climate change sent a shudder through a party...."

From "From charm offensive to scorched earth: How Biden’s fragile alliance with Manchin unraveled" (WaPo).

Why did they hope for so much when they had a 50-50 Senate? Why did they think they'd won the support "to realize [the liberal leaders'] longtime policy goals"? 

"I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there. This is a no."

Said Joe Manchin, quoted in "Manchin Pulls Support From Biden’s Social Policy Bill, Imperiling Its Passage/'I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation,' Mr. Manchin said on ‘Fox News Sunday,’ citing concerns about adding to the national debt" (NYT).

For months, Mr. Manchin had huddled privately with Mr. Biden and his top officials in an attempt to secure a compromise. His objections forced the White House to substantially curtail the scope of the package and remove certain programs, including the creation of a clean electricity program and a plan to ban new oil drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

As early as last week, even as Mr. Biden confirmed that efforts to pass the legislation had stalled, he waxed optimistic, saying that talks with Mr. Manchin would continue and that he believed that “we will bridge our differences and advance the Build Back Better plan.”...

“They’re just trying to make the adjustment for the time to fit the money or the money to fit the time,” Mr. Manchin said. “Not changing our approach, not targeting things we should be doing.”

UPDATE:  Statement from Press Secretary Jen Psaki:

Senator Manchin’s comments this morning on FOX are at odds with his discussions this week with the President, with White House staff, and with his own public utterances.... Senator Manchin pledged repeatedly to negotiate on finalizing that framework “in good faith.”... If his comments on FOX and written statement indicate an end to that effort, they represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate....

Occasionally the quote of the day comes from my Congressman, and that means something to me.

It's this, from Mark Pocan: "The whole day was a clusterfuck, right?"

Full quote: "The whole day was a clusterfuck, right? At the end of the day what we all want to do is get the president’s agenda done, and that’s what we’re going to do."

Quoted in "'Whole day was a clusterf---': Dems overcome distrust to send infrastructure bill to Biden/Democratic centrists and progressives reached a detente that cleared the $550 billion bipartisan legislation late Friday night and advanced their social spending package" (Politico)l

Why was the whole day a clusterfuck?

In the end, Pelosi only lost six Democrats on the infrastructure vote, all progressives.

Pocan is one of the progressives, and we're told that "helped negotiate the rapprochement with the moderates."

Thirteen Republicans voted in favor, giving Democrats more wiggle room on the floor.

The successful vote followed hours of painstaking negotiation between moderates and progressives that yielded a statement from caucus centrists committing to the party-line social safety net bill, if cost estimates met their projections. But the caveat in that centrist statement underscored the fragility of the underlying accord — House moderates are now staking their votes on an independent budget analysis that may take weeks to produce....

Despite the uncertainty, the centrists’ statement represents a significant detente between the Democratic caucus' two warring factions after months of ideological sparring that threatened to take Biden to the mat too -- despite Democrats having full control of Washington.

In a sign of how much trust has eroded, Congressional Progressive Caucus leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash) asked each of the centrists who signed the statement to look her in the eye as they committed both publicly and privately to vote for the broader spending deal after they’ve seen cost estimates, according to multiple Democrats familiar with the exchange.

She's just laying the groundwork for future rhetoric containing the phrase, "You looked me in the eye and...." I presume. I don't believe she could think politicians are the kind of people whose eyes betray them when they are lying.

Jayapal later addressed reporters outside on a wintry night...

The low temperature yesterday was 34° and we're in the middle of the fall, 7 weeks away from the winter solstice, so it's pretty silly to bring the weather into this melodramatic report. Now, I'm questioning what the standard is for "clusterfuck." I'm sure a Wisconsinite like Pocan wouldn't call that night "wintry," but what's the Wisconsin standard for "clusterfuck"? Legislators fleeing the territory while the capitol building is under seige?

Back to the Politico article:

While it’s all but certain the House will have to reckon with the social spending bill again after the Senate, Democratic leaders hope the deal Friday brings an end to their party's months-long internal standoff, which caused a string of embarrassments for leadership including two high-profile abandonments of votes after Biden visits to the Capitol.

By the time lawmakers gathered to vote around 10 p.m., tempers were running high as the House stood in recess while Democratic leaders worked to wrangle the few remaining progressive holdouts.

Rep. Brian Mast (D-Fla.) aggressively heckled Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.), shouting about a provision in a Democratic bill to hire more IRS enforcement. "You're an idiot," Carbajal shouted back at him as he walked away.

Before that a rowdy group of Republicans taunted Democrats by singing across the chamber floor a lyric synonymous with schoolyard defeat: "Na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye." Democrats had mocked Republicans with the same chant in 2017, a year before the GOP lost the House after failing to repeal Obamacare....

Do it for Terry.

"McAuliffe Needs Passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill—Now/If House progressives drop their opposition, Biden will sign it quickly. That may save the Virginia governorship for the Democrats" (Washington Monthly).

To help salvage McAuliffe’s chances against the private equity executive Youngkin—whom [sic] polls show is running an uncomfortably close race—Virginia Senator Mark Warner has floated the idea of re-upping the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill (the “BIF”) passed by the Senate this summer but yet to clear the House. Right now, it’s being held hostage by progressives who insist that its passage be linked to the much bigger Build Back Better Act—a move the White House has blessed. Decoupling the BIF would be a Hail Mary move, but McAuliffe’s situation is dire enough that it might be worth trying again. If liberals drop their objections, the BIF has enough bipartisan support to pass the House easily.

"The initial version of the Democrats’ proposal would have required financial institutions to provide the IRS with two new figures every year..."

"... the total inflows and outflows for any bank account with more than $600 in annual deposits or withdrawals, 'with a breakdown for physical cash, transactions with a foreign account, and transfers to and from another account with the same owner.' The requirement would apply to all business and personal accounts at financial institutions. After Republicans raised concerns that the $600 minimum would sweep up almost all Americans, Democrats raised the proposed threshold to $10,000.... Republican senators including Crapo and Kennedy claimed that under the Democrats’ tax enforcement plan, the IRS would be snooping on the sensitive financial details contained in Americans’ bank records. The burden of proof is on the speaker, as we like to remind our readers, but in this case, no proof was supplied. In reality, the proposal is to monitor the total amount of money going in and out of any bank account with more than $10,000 of transactions in a given year, not the blow-by-blow of where and when people spend their money. And just before this GOP news conference, Democrats had curtailed their proposal to cover fewer Americans and to exempt all wages and federal benefits from the new requirements. These claims earn Three Pinocchios."

From "No, Biden isn’t proposing that the IRS spy on bank records" by WaPo Fact Checker Salvador Rizzo.

I don't see how you get "Pinocchios" when your criticism is undermined by causing your adversary to change their proposal! And I don't see why you get "Pinocchios" for failing to supply proof. The Fact Checker ought to come up with proof that the statement-makers knowingly said something false before assigning all those "Pinocchios." 

By the way, that headline screams partisan politics. When I clicked on that headline, I didn't think I was going to end up at a Fact Checker column. But they got my click, and I'm sure they got lots of other clicks, so I should expect more of this sort of thing in the future.

"Defense hawks such as Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, are outspoken about what they see as a precipitous withdrawal and a collapse that can and should be placed at the Biden administration’s feet...."

"But such voices are becoming rarer in a Republican Party that continues to embrace former President Donald J. Trump, who had demanded an even swifter pullout from Afghanistan, and in a war-weary Democratic Party that is largely standing by Mr. Biden — or staying silent. That may reflect the opinion of voters in both parties. But ultimately an end to the U.S. military’s involvement in Afghanistan may prove to be more popular than the weekend chaos proves to be a liability. Representative Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat and Marine Corps veteran of Iraq, wrote on Twitter: 'What I am feeling and thinking about the situation in Afghanistan, I can never fit on Twitter. But one thing that is definitely sticking out is that I haven’t gotten one constituent call about it. And my district has a large Veteran population.'"

From "In Washington, Recriminations Over Afghanistan Emerge Quickly President Biden is finding few outspoken defenders amid the chaotic collapse of the Afghan government. But after 20 years, a war-weary America may still give the president a pass" by Jonathan Weisman (NYT).

"An unlikely coalition of Democrats across the ideological spectrum mounted an 11th-hour push in the final weekend before the American Rescue Plan for President Biden to go big on tackling child poverty."

"They prevailed over what one person involved in the process called the 'cost police' in Biden’s inner circle, those anxiously warning about the ballooning cost of the stimulus package.... This under-the-radar success created what could be the most consequential piece of the $1.9 trillion package — one that, if made permanent, could approach the impact of the programs established under President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. The sudden, unexpected creation of an approximately $120 billion social program has thrown a twist into the political landscape.... With the initiative expiring in a year, all but ensuring it will be a major issue in the midterms, the child poverty measure raises a central question: Are the politics of big government back?... A family with two young children and no income will now get $600 a month. The parents of 90 percent of the country’s children will benefit, and 27 million children will be lifted from poverty, according to analysts.... ...Democrats hope American families will get used to receiving their checks, and they cite the Washington axiom that it’s hard to take something away from voters after they’ve started receiving it. Still, popularizing the program will require Biden to begin selling it..... Some Democrats acknowledge that some in their party are squeamish about having to defend the distribution of government checks to working-age adults who are not working....  "

From "How Biden quietly created a huge social program" (WaPo).

"Since the end of World War II, 27 of the 38 Congresses have featured a change in the party composition of the Senate during a session."

"The probability that such a shift may occur during this particular Congress may well be even higher than that. At the moment, no fewer than six Democratic senators over the age of 70 represent states where a Republican governor would be free to replace them with a Republican, should a vacancy occur. Five other Democratic senators represent states for which a vacancy would go unfilled for months, until a special election to fill the seat was held — which would hand the G.O.P. control of the Senate at least until that election and likely for the rest of the current Congress if a Republican wins that contest. (In the case of Wisconsin, such a vacancy might not be filled until 2023.) All things considered, the odds that Democrats will lose control of the Senate in the next 22 months are probably close to a coin flip."

From "Justice Breyer Should Retire Right Now/If he doesn’t, Democrats run the very real risk that they would be unable to replace him" by lawprof Paul Campos (NYT).

"We are deeply disappointed in this decision. We are not going to give up the fight to raise the minimum wage to $15 to help millions of struggling American workers..."

"... and their families. The American people deserve it, and we are committed to making it a reality." 

Said Chuck Schumer, quoted in "Biden’s minimum wage increase runs afoul of budget rules/The Senate parliamentarian has issued a ruling that could jeopardize the rest of the president’s $1.9 trillion Covid relief package" (Politico).

Speaking of reality, do you think he's really disappointed? I imagine he's relieved. He and his party have the benefit of looking as though they tried and the benefit of not having the potentially deleterious policy actually imposed on us.

"We’re glad Senator McConnell threw in the towel and gave up on his ridiculous demand. We look forward to organizing the Senate under Democratic control and start getting big, bold things done for the American people."

Said Justin Goodman, a spokesman for Mr. Schumer, quoted in "McConnell Relents in First Filibuster Skirmish, but the War Rages On/Senator Mitch McConnell dropped his demand that Democrats promise to preserve the procedural weapon that can grind the Senate to a halt, but with President Biden’s agenda in the balance, the fight is not over" (NYT).

Senator Mitch McConnell... had refused to agree to a plan for organizing the chamber without a pledge from Democrats to protect the filibuster, a condition that Mr. Schumer had rejected. But late Monday, as the stalemate persisted, Mr. McConnell found a way out by pointing to statements by two centrist Democrats, Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, that said they opposed getting rid of the procedural tool — a position they had held for months — as enough of a guarantee to move forward without a formal promise from Mr. Schumer.... 

As they press forward on Mr. Biden’s agenda, Democrats will come under mounting pressure from activists to jettison the rule....  “I feel pretty damn strongly, but I will also tell you this: I am here to get things done,” said Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana. “If all that happens is filibuster after filibuster, roadblock after roadblock, then my opinion may change.”...

We were just talking about Tester. Remember? He's the Senator who brings his own meat to Washington and wants to "get shit done."

Democrats say they must retain at least the threat that they could one day end the filibuster, arguing that bowing to Mr. McConnell’s demand now would only have emboldened Republicans to deploy it constantly, without fear of retaliation. “Well that’s a nonstarter because if we gave him that, then the filibuster would be on everything, every day,” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press."  

Ah! That makes the most sense of it all. Democrats want the threat of abolishing the filibuster, and Republicans are moderated by the threat alone. Notice that actually to change the rule would require every single Democratic Senator to agree and a tiebreaker vote from Kamala Harris would still be needed. That's a lot of cohesion. 

Kyrsten Sinema is up for reelection in 2024, and she took over a seat that had been held by a Republican. The other Democratic Senator who faces reelection in 2024 and who beat a Republican incumbent in 2018 is Jacky Rosen. We don't hear much from her. As for Manchin, he's been in the Senate longer — since 2011, after the seat was vacated by the death of the Democrat/Klansman Robert Byrd (a historic filibusterer) — but Manchin too is up for reelection in 2024, and I think McConnell knows he can count on Manchin not to vote against the filibuster. 

"Mitch said to me he wants Trump gone. It is in his political interest to have him gone. It is in the GOP interest to have him gone. The question is, do we get there?"

Said "one Republican member of Congress," quoted in "McConnell privately says he wants Trump gone as Republicans quietly lobby him to convict" (CNN). 

The ongoing Republican whisper campaign, according to more than a dozen sources who spoke to CNN, is based on a shared belief that a successful conviction is critical for the future of the Republican party. Multiple sources describe this moment as a reckoning for the party.... 

"Trump created a cult of personality that is hard to dismantle," said a former senior Republican official. "Conviction could do that."

It could. But it could also do something else. I'm trying to picture what Trump's defense will look like and how people will react to it. "Mitch said to me he wants Trump gone," but Trump is already gone. How "gone" do you need to render him? A big show of crushing someone beyond any real need can make onlookers side with him.

ADDED QUESTIONS:

1. Is "a successful conviction... critical for the future of the Republican party"? If the answer isn't "yes," then why would there be a "shared belief that a successful conviction is critical for the future of the Republican party"? Are you dubious that this "shared belief" exists?

2. How many of these "dozen sources" are Republicans? How many are members of Congress? At least one — unless CNN is wrong — is a "Republican member of Congress," but I'll bet he's not a Senator, or CNN would have said so. It seems likely that not one of the sources is a Republican Senator.

3. A successful conviction might be "critical for the future of the Republican party," but is an unsuccessful effort to seek a conviction more useful to the Republican party than avoiding the trial on a procedural ground?

4. What do you mean by "Republican party"? These people who are saying "a successful conviction is critical for the future of the Republican party" — if they exist — aren't they elite insiders talking about preserving their hold on a party that chose Trump rather than one of them? How will the trial reach out to Trump supporters as opposed to alienating them?

"Chuck Schumer is the majority leader and he should be treated like majority leader. We can get shit done around here and we ought to be focused on getting stuff done. If we don’t, the inmates are going to be running this ship."

Said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), quoted in "Democrats rebuff McConnell’s filibuster demands/'Chuck Schumer is the majority leader and he should be treated like majority leader'" (Politico)("McConnell has publicly and privately pressed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to work to keep the 60-vote threshold on most legislation as part of their power-sharing agreement. Democrats have no plans to gut the filibuster further, but argue it would be a mistake to take one of their tools off the table just as they're about to govern"). 

As for "the inmates are going to be running this ship" — the stock phrase is The inmates are running the asylum (or The lunatics are running the asylum). I don't know where Tester got a ship. The ship of state? What's he trying to say, anyway? That you don't want the Senators running the Senate?

A great story on the subject of lunatics running the asylum is Edgar Allan Poe, "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether."

As for "get shit done" — well, it's funny to hear that from a fusty old Senator. I'm trying to figure out if "get shit done" is routine in the workplace these days. I can see that there are books on productivity with that in the title and motivational posters and mugs, but it didn't sound right to me. 

I looked up Tester's life story: "Before his election to the Senate, Tester had never lived more than two hours away from his north-central Montana farm.... [H]e butchers and brings his own meat with him to Washington. He said 'Taking meat with us is just something that we do... We like our own meat.'" 

Close to the farm, brings his own meat — I give him a total pass on "get shit done."

"Mr. Biden’s team has developed a raft of decrees that he can issue on his own authority after the inauguration on Wednesday..."

"... to begin reversing some of President Trump’s most hotly disputed policies. Advisers hope the flurry of action, without waiting for Congress, will establish a sense of momentum for the new president even as the Senate puts his predecessor on trial. On his first day in office alone, Mr. Biden intends a flurry of executive orders that will be partly substantive and partly symbolic. They include rescinding the travel ban on several predominantly Muslim countries, rejoining the Paris climate change accord, extending pandemic-related limits on evictions and student loan payments, issuing a mask mandate for federal property and interstate travel and ordering agencies to figure out how to reunite children separated from families after crossing the border, according to a memo circulated on Saturday by Ron Klain, his incoming White House chief of staff, and obtained by The New York Times. The blueprint of executive action comes after Mr. Biden announced that he will push Congress to pass a $1.9 trillion package of economic stimulus and pandemic relief, signaling a willingness to be aggressive on policy issues and confronting Republicans from the start to take their lead from him. He also plans to send sweeping immigration legislation on his first day in office providing a pathway to citizenship for 11 million people in the country illegally."

The NYT reports.

Aggressive and confrontational... that's the tone they want to set. 

I say "they" because it's "Mr. Biden's team" putting these things together. What part of this is the actual man, Joe Biden, choosing and acting? 

Here's a sentence that's about Biden personally: 

After a lifetime in Washington, the restless, gabby man of consuming ambition who always had something to say and something to prove seems to have given way to a more self-assured 78-year-old who finally achieved his life’s dream.

A man got what he wanted. He was "restless" when he didn't have it yet, and now that he's achieved his dream — getting the position — he's "self-assured." The struggle is over, I guess, and he can relax.

“He is much calmer,” said Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina and a close ally. “The anxiety of running and the pressure of a campaign, all that’s behind him now. Even after the campaign was over, the election was over, all the foolishness coming from the Trump camp, you don’t know how all this stuff is going to play out. You may know how it’s going to end, but you’re anxious about how it plays out. So all that’s behind him now.”

"Senate Democrats could vote to abolish the legislative filibuster, and then pass Biden’s plan on a party-line basis."

"But West Virginia senator Joe Manchin has vowed to keep the filibuster in place. In effect, this means that all regular legislation will need 60 votes to clear the Senate. The only exception to this rule are bills passed through the budget-reconciliation process, which enables legislation pertaining to the federal budget to pass the upper chamber with a simple majority.... [I]t’s hard to see how Biden could really believe there are 10 GOP votes for a $15 minimum wage, or $350 billion in fiscal aid to states, or, frankly, most of the items in his proposal. It’s possible then that this gesture toward bipartisanship is intended to fail: Perhaps, the idea is to make the GOP an offer it can’t accept — but which the voting public overwhelmingly supports — and then say, 'Well, we tried for unity but those Republicans wouldn’t even support the $15 minimum wage that red state voters are clamoring for, so we’re just going to roll everything into one giant, partisan reconciliation bill.' Alternatively Biden may simply be making an opening offer full of provisions he’s ready to concede for the sake of a bipartisan compromise. Regardless, the proposal strikes a weird balance between maximalism and pragmatism.... Hopefully, Biden & Co. know what they’re doing." 

From "The Good, the Bad, and the Odd in Biden’s Stimulus Plan" by Eric Levitz (NY Magazine).

It looks as though the Democrats have won control of Congress.

Does this frighten you or is your heart lightened? Surely, it's a complicated mix, whichever side you're on.

If, overall, you support the Democratic Party, yes, of course, you feel good, but what worries you about the prospect of the Democratic Party control of Congress? What's the downside? 

If, overall, you support the GOP, it's got to hurt, but how might your party benefit long term?

I'm asking these questions with the assumption that Joe Biden will be sworn in as President. Please don't use the comments here to bring up the challenge to the Electoral College, which is doomed and which must be blamed, at least in part, for the GOP losses in the Georgia runoff. 

"When the new House convenes at noon on Jan. 3, all members will have to be physically present to be sworn in, and they will have to re-pass the rule that allowed the House to vote remotely."

"If, let’s say, five Democrats have covid-19 and are quarantined or hospitalized, or can’t make it to Washington, while all the Republicans can be present, the majority could rest temporarily with the GOP. What would then happen on Jan. 6, when Congress meets in joint session to affirm the electoral college results, is anyone’s guess.... The House has not had a margin this close since after the 1930 election. That year, Republicans won 218 seats but had enough deaths before the convening of the new Congress in March — 14 in all — that Democrats were able to take the majority and hold it when they won a few of the special elections in the interim. The Democrats’ impending mini-majority means there is no leeway for President-elect Joe Biden to choose any more House members for Cabinet positions or other key posts, and there will be heavy pressure put on California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) not to choose one of the very attractive possible replacements in the House for Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris’s Senate seat when it becomes vacant on Jan. 20. And, in the meantime, any glitch — an unexpected death or resignation, or even defection, could make a big difference.... [Nancy Pelosi] will have no leeway at all. The speaker will need the support of progressives... and all the Democrats across that wide spectrum. And lawmakers will always think about the next election in 2022, a midterm vote that usually goes against the party holding the White House, making those members from swing or close districts — most of them from the moderate wing of the party — especially antsy and fearful of controversial issues or votes...."

From "Democrats’ House majority is razor-thin. Any glitch could spell disaster" (an opinion piece by Norman Ornstein in WaPo).