The jury's in. Out. Whatever.

Inevitably there is a lot of headscratching going on about whatever happened to the ‘blue wave’ in the US which was meant to carry the Democrats, as per polling evidence to a clean sweep of Congress and the White House. What happened was a virtual disaster for the Democrats, despite their pyrrhic presidential victory. Across the country, in state houses and many parochial elections the Republicans did well, which means their gerrymandering and voter suppression efforts will intensify—more so indeed after Trump’s defeat.
 
Those celebrating Biden’s relatively marginal victory have convinced themselves that this repudiates the view that Sanders could have beaten Trump. The idea that somebody with (by American standards) a socialist agenda may have performed better than Biden is of course an unprovable thesis, since it will never be tested. Yet, for centrist commentators in the UK they seem to think they now have all the evidence they need to show that a left wing agenda is a vote loser, and inter alia that Corbyn supporters should pack their bags and slink away in disgrace. Or at least shut up, and allow the serious politicians (like Biden, like Starmer) to confront the right wing, populist appetite. They ignore the fact that Trump won more votes than most if not all previous successful presidential candidates. Even poor old Jeremy Corbyn won more votes in 2019 than did his party under three previous leaders.
 
I am prepared to admit that Jeremy didn’t quite look the part of a Prime Minister, but it would have been a bit of a different story had he not been undermined by the PLP and it appears from the leaked Labour report, by many party staff too, not to mention our dutifully Tory media. I wonder if Biden had had to face that triumvirate of forces over the Ukranian Hunter Biden corruption story for two or three years he would have overcome it. As it is, he was given a fairly soft ride on the matter, and of course it helped that his main accuser was a notorious liar.