Jubilant Democrats briefly forget they are in Orlando.
So it turns out I was all worked up about nothing, you guys. Barack Obama has been re-elected president, and the balance of power in Congress has remained fundamentally the same. Democrats picked up a couple of seats in the senate, but not enough to achieve the 60-vote supermajority that has become the threshold for overcoming inevitable Republican filibusters. But are those filibusters still inevitable? The GOP spent four years stymying the president at every turn; they held the nation’s credit rating hostage and generally wrecked a two-century tradition of comity in American government, and it didn’t work. So will Obama’s second term be any different?