American democracy still sort of works

Via The Poor Man: Glenn Greenwald on the midterm as a refutation of fatalism.

There are a lot of problems with the way we run elections, some of which I've talked about here, and some of which, I think, are the result of deliberate sabotage. But one of the most important things to come out of this election is that American Democrats, especially those who are too young to remember better days, can no longer wallow in the belief that they are doomed to lose forever by the actions of some all-powerful demiurge, whether it's named Bush, Cheney, Rove, bin Laden or Diebold.

Nor, I should add, are they doomed to lose forever by some hideous inherent flaw in Democratness that must be extirpated from the party before we can proceed. Centrist Western and Rust Belt Dems and super-liberal Northeastern ones both won big on Tuesday. Some Republican commentators trying to eke some small satisfaction out of events have noted that the average constituencies of both parties may have moved to the right, but if so, that's just the Will Rogers phenomenon at work, as more districts move into the Democratic camp.

(No, no, not that Will Rogers phenomenon).