In the days following the presidential election in November, political centrists reached a hasty verdict. Never mind all the squabbling about voter fraud — they had won. The extremes had lost. Donald Trump, the maniac, was out; Joe Biden, the moderate, was in.

Yes, the increasingly radical Democratic party still controlled the House of Representatives, but as long as the Republicans won one of two Senate runoff races in Georgia in January, the crazies would be checked by a Republican majority in the Senate.