CANTON, N.Y.

REPUBLICANS WARN that we risk liberal tyranny now that the Democrats have won the presidency and increased their majorities in the House and the Senate. They caution that the Democratic sweep threatens to overwhelm the system of checks and balances that the Founders so wisely designed to thwart oppressive majorities.

Meanwhile, the media assure us that Republicans can still stop a Democratic juggernaut by filibustering bills in the Senate since Democrats failed to win the 60-vote majority they need to bring bills to the Senate floor for a vote.

In fact, both projections are wrong. Republicans have less to fear from liberal Democrats capturing all three branches of government than they imagine, and Senate rules are less of an obstacle to Democrats’ governing successfully than the media thinks.

The U.S. remains a deeply conservative country. Nearly twice as many citizens identify themselves as conservative as call themselves liberal. Thus, even if Republicans can no longer offer much resistance to the Democrats, public opinion still can.

Congressional gains came from traditionally conservative Republican districts, picking up seats that added to the right wing of the party. This will not only put added stress on party discipline but will temper the liberalism of party leaders, who will have to moderate their agendas to satisfy Blue Dog Democrats to retain their majority.

Democrats come to office without the kind of intellectual infrastructure enjoyed by the Republicans. They have no equivalent to the conservative network of think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute or the Cato Institute. While these think tanks cooked up ready-to-use policies to be introduced as legislation, the cupboard in liberal intellectual kitchen is relatively bare.

Finally, the campaign did little to redeem the liberal brand. Obama sold himself as an alternative to the failures of President Bush, not as the embodiment of a new liberal synthesis. He did little to legitimate or reinvigorate liberal polices and values beyond defending the necessity of government itself, which even the Bush administration has now adopted in response to the financial crisis.

But if Republican fears of liberal tyranny are exaggerated, so are their defenses against it. Pundits says the Senate rules requiring 60 votes to cut off debate and bring bills up for a vote are a powerful bulwark behind which Republicans can still rally. Neglected in this view is that Bush governed successfully despite razor-thin Republican majorities. The lack of 60 Republican votes never prevented him from achieving his most important policy aims. For example, he got his tax cuts passed as part of the budget- reconciliation process, which is not subject to filibuster according to Senate rules.

Congressional leaders also have perfected strategies to circumvent Senate rules that permit extended debate. More bills passed by Congress are omnibus bills, in which different pieces of legislation that address various issues are bundled together in one bill. Enough senators have stakes in such bills that they don’t want to see a filibuster cause it to fail. Another end-run strategy is to rewrite legislation in conference, where bills that have already passed both the Senate and the House go to be reconciled. When conference reports return to the Senate floor for approval, Senators are reluctant to resort to filibusters because bills are so far along the legislative process by that point.

The Democrats won a resounding victory on Nov. 4. Republicans are in retreat and the Democratic Party is poised to govern. But the obstacles that Democrats face in governing are not Senate rules permitting filibusters that the media have focused on. Rather they have to do with the basically conservative predispositions of the American public, an increase in the number of conservative Blue Dog Democrats that need to be fed and whose presence will make party discipline that much harder to achieve, and a lack of intellectual infrastructure to support legislative initiatives.

Alan Draper is chairman of the Department of Government at St. Lawrence University, in Canton, N.Y.