 Believe it or not, the Georgia runoff race took place on Tuesday, but now after everything that's happened, after extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol, it seems like it was so far away, but that happened this week. And on Tuesday evening, I was contemplating making a video and releasing it, and I really wish that I did. Dave Wasserman had called the race, it had been called for Raphael Warnock, but John Ossoff, it wasn't called for him yet, and we were trying to determine whether or not he'd win by a large enough margin to not trigger a recount. So I just thought, if I make a video, I'm going to want to go into depth about what the implications of this are, because if both of them win, then Dems to retake the Senate. And if it's not actually official, if Ossoff doesn't win, then that entire conversation will be moot. So I decided to wait. And then the following day, we had far-right extremists storm the Capitol, and I didn't get to talk about this when I wanted to. But I think this is something that needs to be addressed. It's really, really significant. Democrats will retake the Senate. Bernie Sanders will become the Budget Committee Chairman, and we have a chance of getting Nina Turner elected to Congress. This is really good. And what we're seeing is a promise from Joe Biden and both John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock that $2,000 stimulus checks are coming. So there's actually a little bit of cause for optimism to be a little bit hopeful in the short term. Long term, we've got a lot of work to do. But I think that this is so, so important, primarily because of one thing, Mitch McConnell will no longer be Senate Majority Leader. That to me is really what this is all about. Mitch McConnell has been an obstacle to anything getting done. Incrementalism, just basic governmental functioning. He has blocked everything, like the damage that he has caused. The legacy is going to live on for decades. So just to have him not be Senate Majority Leader, I care about that more than anything. But having said that, though, it is now the case that Democrats are in complete control of government. And Kamala Harris will be the tiebreaker. So that means they could do whatever they want to do now. And I have a suspicion that some Democrats aren't too happy about this. Not all of them. I think a lot of them are genuinely happy. And I'm talking about elected Democrats. But now they've got to put up. You can't blame anyone. You can't blame Donald Trump. You can't blame Mitch McConnell. If we're going to hold anyone in government accountable, we know which party is in power. It is the Democratic Party. So now there's no excuses. We're in the middle of a pandemic, and expectations are very high. If Democrats fuck this up, they will lose control of the House in 2022. Now, it is usually the case that the party in control does lose control of the House or the Senate, one branch of government after the first election when they're in power. And so if they want to stop that from happening and actually really make some changes, there's a lot that I think they need to do. Of course, there's the usual policies that I'm always going to advocate for, Medicare for All. And I fully, fully expect progressive members of Congress to go to bat for that policy. Like, don't allow them to just push for access to healthcare and accept that that's their position. No, you don't negotiate on their terms. You force them. You get rowdy. You make sure that you get what you want. But I'm just going to say that Democrats, the first few things that they have got to prioritize, is they have to save democracy. And what I mean by that is you have to get electoral reform. And this doesn't have to be substantial. But we need a new Voting Rights Act. We need to make sure that voting is a national holiday so that we turn out as higher. And you have to make sure that DC and Puerto Rico become states. If Democrats do that, if they strengthen democracy, just that one act can give them the edge in the following election when it's expected that they could lose even more ground. Because if you have DC and Puerto Rico as states, then that is two more senators from each state that will most likely be Democratic. And people will respond by saying, Mike, this is like really dirty because you're trying to change the institution to benefit the party who you hate the least. But that's not actually the case. Because anytime we're literally strengthening democracy by expanding voting universally and franchising people, making sure that more people have adequate representation in DC and Puerto Rico, that's a good thing for democracy. And so if that hurts Republicans, it makes it more difficult for them to win, they've got to convince those folks. They've got to stop being so fucking extreme and loony and actually offer people something, anything. And then once Democrats do that, then they need to look seriously at reforming the Supreme Court. I want them to pack the court. I think that after Republicans stole two seats from you, it's completely reasonable for you to appoint two Supreme Court justices yourselves. Like there's nothing in the Constitution that limits the amount of judges that we have. It's just a norm that there's supposed to be nine Supreme Court justices. Expand the court or do some sort of reform, kill the filibuster. If they don't take these actions to actually reform these institutions, then we're going to be right back to square one where Republicans can just run roughshod over them. And the country suffers and becomes more radicalized. And that's a result of them being deprived of material goods. Now, if they're able to do all of this, I think that bodes well for the functioning of democracy. And I say that because if Democrats strengthen democracy and they make it more difficult for Republicans to win, since they can only win when they suppress turnout and whatnot, they're gonna have no choice. Republicans will have to moderate at least a little bit. This party has been going further and further and further and further to the right. And what we just saw over the last couple of years was them slamming to a brick wall. You can only move so far to the right until you reach full-blown authoritarianism. And we saw that. So if it becomes more difficult for Republicans to win legitimately so because our democracy has been strengthened and suffrage has been expanded, they're gonna have no choice. They have to moderate. They can still try to suppress the votes and implement voter ID laws and try to crush the postal service. But they're going to have to moderate at least a little bit. The extremism will have to be toned down. And I think overall that's a really good thing. Now, I'm talking about reforms, but when it comes to policies, we better see some damn good policies. And my expectations are higher than they usually are because the Senate majority leader now is Chuck Schumer. And guess what? He's got a primary coming up in 2022. So all eyes are on Chuck Schumer. If we don't get the goods, you go. You go bye-bye. So you better fucking put up or shut up. And it looks like he knows that the task ahead of him is absolutely momentous. So he's been pushing for a cancellation of $50,000 of student debt. That's great. Do it. Let's cancel it all. I hope that the left in Congress pushes for that, but deliver. Look, Democrats, if they don't deliver, if they don't do some major reforms, governmental reforms and policy reforms that stops people from suffering, we're going to be right back to square one. And when we get to a position where people feel depressed because government isn't responding to their needs and Republicans take over again, we're going to look back to these next two years and say it's because Democrats didn't do enough. So if they want to stop that from happening, they've got to deliver because again, no excuses. And that means we've got to be mobilized. We've got to be ready to dedicate time every single day to call the phones of members of Congress, take action. I mean, you can't do much during a pandemic. I'm not going to encourage people to protest in person when we see record numbers with hospitals being overrun. But when the pandemic actually is under control, that's when we can actually do more direct action. But for now, the most that I'll encourage is for you to do public pressure to everyone in Congress, make sure that the left is holding the conservative Democrats accountable. We're expecting a lot. And I really am hoping to see, progressives challenge Democratic Party leadership, challenge them and not just accept their position as the valid and legitimate one. Like if we talk about healthcare reform, don't just accept that a public option is the best that we can get, actually fight for Medicare for all. Use hardcore bargaining tactics. I don't care, you know, when AOC showed up to her first day in Congress, she sat in Nancy Pelosi's office. Maybe we've got to do that again, like get hardcore because if you don't hold them accountable, we're going to hold you accountable. We're watching all eyes are on Democrats right now. So this is going to be really interesting. And I actually do feel enthusiastic about what's to come, even though I feel dread looming as well because I am fully expecting Democrats to disappoint me. But the expectations are very, very high. I know Democrats are going to fuck up and get cold feet and Joe Biden just isn't the right person for this moment. But that doesn't mean we're not going to push them as hard as we possibly can. Moving Joe Biden left is not going to be an easy thing to do. And I think it's probably not possible to get him to move left on a lot of issues, but we make progress where we can. And we absolutely push the envelope on every single issue. If Democrats offer you one thing, you always counter offer and get as much as you possibly can. And if politicians, the squad, leftist in Congress don't do enough, then that's on us. We've got to take accountability too if we don't hold them accountable. So I'll leave that there. There's a lot. And I'm really interested to see what happens in the next couple of years. But first, Democrats got to come out the gate, swinging and get reforms implemented, change government, expand democracy, strengthen our institutions. Otherwise, we're going to be right back to square one again, where we have another demagogue exploiting people's desperation due to radicalization. And this time, the only folks who will be to blame are Democrats. So good luck. You know the thing, thing.