"If there had really been a red wave, a lot of things would have been different," Michael Shannon, a political commentator and Newsmax columnist told Sputnik. "But now [the GOP is] going to have a very narrow, an extremely narrow majority. And this election just tells the Biden bureaucrats they can do anything they want. And there is no accountability."
"[The GOP] performance was miserable. The predictions were anywhere from 20 to 35 seats [in the House], winning those additional seats. It looks like so far they've got four, a lot of Democrats who should have lost their jobs are going to keep them," he continued.
The Republicans are projected to win the House, but uncertainty over who will call the shots in the Senate persists. Some observers are saying that the race may end in an evenly split upper chamber, again, while others are referring to the fact that the Democratic Party has managed to grab a Pennsylvania Senate seat from the GOP. Earlier, GOP Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania retired, vacating the seat.
Ex-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki earlier revealed that the White House is "gleeful" about the preliminary midterm election results, which showed no considerable "red wave." The unfolding situation evokes strong memories of the failed "blue wave" expectations in 2020, when the left-leaning press lamented the fact that the party's plans of progressive policy changes had suffered a significant setback. The US corporate media and pollsters are becoming increasingly incapable of taking the political temperature of the country, as independent American journalist Max Parry remarked in an interview with Sputnik earlier this week.
Two-Year Long Stalemate
Apparently, the White House's playfulness may soon morph into uneasiness, given the upcoming political gridlock in Washington and possible drama over the 2023 debt ceiling increases.
Shannon forecast that in the coming two years, Democratic and Republican initiatives will most likely stall in the US Congress. Even if the GOP takes the Senate, Joe Biden has veto power to upend any of their political endeavors. Likewise, he does not expect any changes to the US foreign strategy, "because Biden still controls the State Department and the State Department is run by leftists."
"[Republicans] could pass bills that the electorate supports, but Biden can make sure none of them become law because of his veto," Shannon said. "That will block them for two years (…) Biden's veto is absolute because overturning a veto requires two-thirds of vote. And they won't have that in the House and they certainly won't have it in the Senate. So he is still controlling the government, although it is a negative control."
According to Shannon, the potential paralysis of the government could result in the GOP's defeat in 2024, as the Republicans would be unable to demonstrate to their electorate any meaningful achievements.
However, some other conservative pundits and bloggers say that it's actually good that the GOP does not have full control of the US Congress given the perfect storm that is about to come on the Democratic administration's watch. This storm includes the continuation of inflation, further recession, new Fed rate hikes, which means more expensive borrowing, drop in earnings, and potential declines in the stock market. They believe that the less the GOP controls under these circumstances, the better.
Vote Fraud Suspicions
Meanwhile, long delays in announcing the election results by Arizona and some other states have triggered growing concerns among conservatives. Some of them say that the election was "rigged again," citing the controversial 2020 presidential race.
"I think it's always amazing that these election machines have problems on Election Day which is when most Republicans vote so that any problems on Election Day hold down Republican balloting, whereas you never have any glitches in absentee voting where Democrats vote, the postal service doesn't go on strike. People don't lose mailboxes. All the glitches seem to happen on the day Republicans vote," Shannon noted.
According to the commentator, the way to overcome this is to have extremely limited absentee balloting and no voting by mail.
"And the vast majority of voting takes place on Election Day with paper ballots because, like Mark Steyn says, Republican politicians claim that we have a center-right electorate, but unfortunately, we appear to have center-left voting machines," Shannon concluded.