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When Joe Biden is inaugurated, he will immediately be confronted with an unprecedented challenge and I dont mean the pandemic, although Covid-19 will almost surely be killing thousands of Americans every day. I mean, instead, that hell be the first modern U.S. president trying to govern in the face of an opposition that refuses to accept his legitimacy. And no, Democrats by and large were not claiming Donald Trump was illegitimate, just that he was incompetent and dangerous.

It goes without saying that Donald Trump, whose conspiracy theories are getting wilder and wilder, will never concede, and that millions of his followers will always believe or at least say they believe that the election was stolen.

Most Republicans in Congress certainly know this is a lie, although even on Capitol Hill there are a lot more crazy than wed like to imagine. But it doesnt matter; they still wont accept that Biden has any legitimacy, even though he won the popular vote by a large margin.

And this wont simply be because they fear a backlash from the base if they admit that Trump lost fair and square. At a fundamental level and completely separate from the Trump factor todays G.O.P. doesnt believe that Democrats ever have the right to govern, no matter how many votes they receive.

After all, in recent years weve seen what happens when a state with a Republican legislature elects a Democratic governor: Legislators quickly try to strip away the governors powers. So does anyone doubt that Republicans will do all they can to hobble and sabotage Bidens presidency?

The only real questions are how much harm the G.O.P. can do, and how Biden will respond.

The answer to the first question depends a lot on what happens in the Jan. 5 Georgia Senate runoffs. If Democrats win both seats, theyll have effective though narrow control of both houses of Congress. If they dont, Mitch McConnell will have enormous powers of obstruction and anyone who doubts that hell use those powers to undermine Biden at every turn is living in a fantasy world.

But how much damage would obstructionism inflict? In terms of economic policy which is all Ill talk about in this column the near future can be divided into two eras, pre- and post-vaccine (or more accurately, after wide dissemination of a vaccine).

For the next few months, as the pandemic continues to run wild, tens of millions of Americans will be in desperate straits unless the federal government steps up to help. Unfortunately, Republicans may be in a position to block this help.

The good news about the very near future, such as it is, is that Americans will probably (and correctly) blame Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, for the misery theyre experiencing and this very fact may make Republicans willing to cough up at least some money.

What about the post-vaccine economy? Here again theres potentially some good news: Once a vaccine becomes widely available, well probably see a spontaneous economic recovery, one that wont depend on Republican cooperation. And there will also be a vast national sense of relief.

So Biden might do OK for a while even in the face of scorched-earth Republican opposition. But we cant be sure of that. Republicans might refuse to confirm anyone for key economic positions. Theres always the possibility of another financial crisis and outgoing Trump officials have been systematically undermining the incoming administrations ability to deal with such a crisis if it happens. And America desperately needs action on issues from infrastructure, to climate change, to tax enforcement that wont happen if Republicans retain blocking power.

So what can Biden do?

First, he needs to start talking about immediate policy actions to help ordinary Americans, if only to make it clear to Georgia voters how much damage will be done if they dont elect Democrats to those two Senate seats.

If Democrats dont get those seats, Biden will need to use executive action to accomplish as much as possible despite Republican obstruction although I worry that the Trump-stacked Supreme Court will try to block him when he does.

Finally, although Biden is still talking in a comforting way about unity and reaching across the aisle, at some point hell need to stop reassuring us that hes nothing like Trump and start making Republicans pay a political price for their attempts to prevent him from governing.

Now, I dont mean that he should sound like Trump, demanding retribution against his enemies although the Justice Department should be allowed to do its job and prosecute whatever Trump-era crimes it finds.

No, what Biden needs to do is what Harry Truman did in 1948, when he built political support by running against do-nothing Republicans. And hell have a better case than Truman ever did, because todays Republicans are infinitely more corrupt and less patriotic than the Republicans Truman faced.

The results of this years election, with a solid Biden win but Republicans doing well down-ballot, tells us that American voters dont fully understand what the modern G.O.P. is really about. Biden needs to get that point across, and make Republicans pay for the sabotage we all know is coming.

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How Will Biden Deal With Republican Sabotage? - The New York Times