On Tuesday, Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock narrowly defeated his Republican opponent Herschel Walker in a runoff election in Georgia, giving the Democratic Party a 51-49 majority in the Senate of the United States.

In the midterm general elections held on November 8, the Democrats retained effective control of the Senate and gained one seat in Pennsylvania, replacing an outgoing Republican senator, giving them a 50-49 seat advantage. If the Republicans had lost in Georgia, the Senate would have stayed evenly divided at 50-50, as it was during the first two years of the Biden administration, with Vice President Kamala Harris holding the tie-breaking vote.

The victory in the Georgia runoff strengthens the Democrats' position, giving them a small majority on Senate committees rather than being forced to lose an equal number of members to the Republicans. This will make it simpler for President Biden to secure Senate confirmation for nominations, especially for the federal courts. It will also weaken the veto power of the most conservative Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kristen Sinema of Arizona, which has been used by Vice President Joe Biden as justification for killing even the most modest social reform legislation, although the duo will still be able to block the passage of bills if they work together.

The 60-vote filibuster threshold for the passage of bills in the Senate remains, and the Republicans have regained control of the House of Representatives by a narrow four-vote margin, setting the stage for two years of legislative stalemate—except when it comes to funneling untold billions into the US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and passing record Pentagon budgets, or passing dictatorial bills blocking strikes and imposing corporate-dictated contracts on worke

The White House, the Democrats, and the majority of the corporate media are praising Warnock's victory as a victory for democracy over Donald Trump, who personally selected Walker, a former college and professional football running back, as the Republican contender. The media is hailing the latest defeat of a far-right politician endorsed by Donald Trump as a potentially catastrophic electoral blow to the ex-president and leader of the January 6, 2021 coup attempt.

Shortly after the November midterm elections, Trump declared his candidacy for re-election, despite widespread Republican Party opposition over his unwillingness to recognize the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and his insistence on making the "stolen election" a central campaign theme. Trump published a rant on his Truth Social platform last Friday asking for the "abolition" of the United States Constitution to restore him to the presidency. This followed his Mar-a-Lago meal with Hitler admirer Kanye West and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, both prominent anti-Semites and neo-Nazis.

No prominent Republican official has stated that Trump's actions prevent him from earning the party's nomination and serving in the office again, and the Democrats have all but abandoned the topic of his flagrant assault on the Constitution. Warnock never mentioned it in his victory speech late Tuesday night, after the election had been declared in his favor by the main media.

Walker conceded very immediately after the media called the race for Warnock and made a point in his remarks to tacitly distance himself from Trump, stating, "I want you to believe in America and continue to believe in the Constitution and our elected representatives."

In a phone call to congratulate Warnock, President Biden stated, "Tonight, Georgia voters stood up for democracy and against Ultra MAGAism."

Ultra MAGAism was a prominent phrase. Biden has previously characterized Trump and MAGA [Make America Great Again] as a threat to democracy posed by extremists. With the qualifier "ultra," he is implicitly distinguishing between the fascist wing of the Republican Party around Trump and the growing support among far-right Republican officials for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, another fascist who has refrained from promoting Trump's "stolen election" lie and won reelection by a large margin in November. Biden made a point of being pictured with DeSantis at the beginning of October after he came to Florida to commend the Republican governor for his response to Hurricane Ian.

Warnock, the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, is a conventional and conservative Democrat. His opponent Walker opposed abortion even in cases of incest or rape, and he was vilified when his ex-wife and girlfriends accused him of domestic violence and paying for their abortions, while he ignored the threat of nuclear war in Europe and supported Biden's right-wing domestic agenda.

He was elected to the Senate after defeating the Republican incumbent in a special election runoff held on January 5, 2021 (the day before the Trump coup attempt) to fill the unexpired term of a retiring Republican senator. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, a Democrat, also won his runoff election on the same day, removing another Republican incumbent from office. These victories gave the Democrats effective control of the Senate.

In the November general election, Warnock received 37,000 more votes than Walker, giving him a margin of 0.9%, but fell short of the 50 percent threshold necessary by Georgia law, necessitating the December 6 runoff. On Tuesday, with 99 percent of the votes tabulated and a strong voter participation of almost 3.5 million, he strengthened his lead against Walker by 95,000. His margin of victory increased by 2.8 percentage points to 51.4% over 48.6%.

Fulton County, which encompasses Atlanta, witnessed a decline in Warnock's margin against Walker, albeit one that remained extremely significant. He made the most progress in affluent suburbs of urban centers, particularly in the region surrounding Atlanta.

The Washington Post produced an analysis comparing Warnock's vote in Tuesday's runoff to his vote in the runoff against then-Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler in 2021. Under the title "Warnock improved in affluent precincts over 2021," the Post said that the statistics revealed "a clear movement of support to Warnock in wealthier precincts—places that would ordinarily be expected to be more overwhelmingly Republican."

The Post stated, "The wealthier the neighborhood, the more it switched to Warnock in comparison to 2021... It decreased in the poorest neighborhoods, which are also the least White.

In its Wednesday election analysis, the New York Times elucidated the anti-working class strategy of the Democratic Party in unambiguous terms. It was written: "Since 2008, Democrats have hoped that demographic changes and millions of money could help put the rising enclaves of the South and West into play, allowing the party to stop pursuing the votes of white, working-class voters in Ohio and Iowa.

"Democrats argue their Georgia victories will be more durable. Mr. Warnock's coalition closely resembled Mr. Biden's: an alliance of voters of color, younger voters, and suburbanites with college degrees.

In other words, continue to consign the "white working class" to the fascists of the Republican Party while pushing the politics of racial and gender identity deployed by upper-middle-class layers to acquire positions, income, and power.

Two other characteristics of the Georgia senate race and the midterm elections should be recognized.

First, the election of the Georgia senator was a farce of democracy due to the massive sums of corporate money that were poured into the process. According to a December 6 New York Times article quoting the non-profit organization OpenSecrets, approximately $401 million was spent in the Warnock-Walker contest alone before Tuesday's election. This is only a portion of the $1.4 billion spent on four elections in Georgia since 2020, including the 2020 campaigns between Warnock, Ossoff, and their Republican opponents, as well as the 2018 gubernatorial contest between Republican incumbent Brian Kemp and Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams. During the four weeks of this year's runoff campaign, the Warnock and Walker campaigns spent nearly $81 million on advertisements.

According to OpenSecrets, the Georgia Senate race was the most costly fight of the 2022 midterm elections, with the majority of the funds coming from Democratic donors.

Second, the amazing fact is that, for the first time since 1914, all incumbent senators were re-elected in this year's elections. This demonstrates the undemocratic and sclerotic nature of the capitalist two-party system.

Amid an escalating war involving nuclear powers in Europe and a growing confrontation between the United States and China; a pandemic that has already killed millions and continues to spread; raging inflation and a historic upsurge of workers' struggles internationally; and the fascist transformation of one of the two parties of US big business as well as the growth of fascist forces worldwide—the American capitalist two-party system is impervious to change.