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These two look like friends, right?
Big picture time kids. The elections that we have been talking about and issuing predictions on for over a year are over, and the dust is beginning to settle after one of the strangest and most heated Midterm cycles of recent memory (satirized brilliantly by the Onion here).
What happened is what many of us thought would happen. The Republicans took control of the House in impressive fashion, and narrowed the margin in a still-Democrat-controlled Senate.
But more importantly: what does it all mean?
The Republicans have won on rhetoric of destruction, rhetoric of rebuke, rhetoric of refudiation. They have won on rhetoric of principles, rather than policy. There is nothing wrong with any of this (with the exception of making up words, I suppose). It reflected the mood of the electorate and it was a good strategy for breaking Democratic control of Congress. Many Republican talking points from the campaign trail will prove indispensible from here on out.
But to act on those principles, Republicans need to change gears; they need to go from destructive to constructive, and fast. The question is: will they?
Let’s say I’m cautiously optimistic.
I’m optimistic because, paradoxically, the Republicans did not take the Senate.
I’m hoping that this will make them more guarded against the myth of the mandate (included in the well done list of Midterm myths by the Times here). The Democrats fell into the myth of the mandate in believing that the country wanted Obama and friends to do whatever they wanted and everything would be sunshine and double rainbows. The most important thing for Republicans now is to avoid replicating that mistake.
I’m only cautiously optimistic because of the ridiculously polarized nature of these elections. I’m only cautiously optimistic because what we have heard from Obama and GOP leadership sounds not enough like eagerness to compromise and too much like finger pointing.
Obama has consistently blamed Republicans for a failure to compromise. Before the Midterms, he expressed hope at compromise not because of a changed tact from the Oval Office, but because the Republicans were going to change.
“It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, they feel more responsible,” he told the New York Times, “either because they didn’t do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn’t work for them, or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way.”
Likewise, you have the Right throwing out gems like this one from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, “The group that should get the message [to compromise] is our friends on the other side of the aisle.”
As long as both sides wait for the other to miraculously see the light and start agreeing with them, change isn’t going to come to Washington.
But let’s not despair. When asked about Health Care post-Midterms, House Speaker elect John Boehner talked not just about dismantling, but of replacing the act with more effective reforms. The President talked about being open to Republican improvements to Health Care Reform. (Watch Boehner’s press conference here, and Obama’s here.)
So we return to our original question: what does it all mean?
Bottom line: Congress will be different, and there will be some compromise between right and left, not because either side wants it, but because they don’t really have a choice. It’s going to be painful, both for the politicians (but they can suck it up), and to watch (but watch it on your respective biased news channels and it’ll be bearable). President Obama’s progressive agenda will be significantly retarded, but it was off to a blistering pace to begin with. The Tea Party will quiet down, at least to some extent. They will stick around and come out in force two years from now, but don’t expect them to be calling for the heads of many of the newly elected Republicans, just as only a small minority of liberals have challenged Obama on his broken promises. Health care will be an issue of contention, with Obama’s program either undergoing nontrivial changes or getting crippled by underfunding. The economy will continue to improve and spending on social programs will be curtailed somewhat.
Those are my broad, completely unsupported predictions at least. What are yours? Weigh in below.
photo credit: http://newsone.com/nation/washington-watch/newsonestaff2/house-speaker-boehner-obama-agenda-rejected-by-american-people/
