In this week's midterm elections, Republicans gained a majority in the Senate, expanded their grip on the House, and held on to a few governorships that were in jeopardy.
House Republicans will now have the largest majority since the Truman administration, and the Senate is preparing for the era of Mitch McConnell as the expected majority leader.
The pain and fear from left-leaning media organizations was palpable on election night.
Even The Huffington Post's front page was splashed with the words, "Red Wedding," a Game of Thrones reference to a slaughter of the Stark family -- the only seemingly good guys in the books and on the show, for those not in the know.
Predictably, the response over at Fox News was a more gleeful one.
This will be a blow to the president's agenda, the fate of immigration reform and nominations hang in the balance, and there will most likely be consequences for lower-income Americans who rely on government programs for assistance.
But are things really going to be that different?
Did the country just venture down an unknown path?
The short answer, is no.
If you look at congressional leadership, the players remain the same, even if they've shifted positions for a time.
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi aren't going anywhere.
And by the way, both of them are 74 years old -- career politicians -- and yet Democrats are not looking at Tuesday's major loss as a catalyst for shaking things up.
And when it comes to incumbents losing their seats, there were 10 Democrats and 3 Republicans kicked out of the House, and 3 Democrats in the Senate -- but overall, the results of this election were not a major political transformation.
The winners remain big money donors and special interests.
The establishment will continue to support our national security complex and the surveillance state.
Wall Street will still hold the purse and have the ears of those in power.
And a two-party system will be sustained, no matter how low the approval ratings get for congress and our other institutions.
Time magazine's cover this week, meant to pour a little salt in the wounds of the president and his party, no doubt, will feature Mitch McConnell in the Shepard Fairey-style 2008 poster with the words "change" written across the bottom.
But let's face it, the status quo is sustained -- and the media should know better, that the more things "change," the more they stay the same.
Watch above: This week on HuffPost Live, I spoke to Dr. Jeffrey Sachs about his recent blog post, "Understanding and Overcoming America's Plutocracy." I asked him how the defining role of money in politics and how the hyper-partisan media climate continues to miss the big picture.