It would have been better if Democrats had defied the odds and regained control of the Senate, too, but voters in Florida, Indiana and Missouri rejected moderate Democratic incumbent senators in favor of Trumpist Republicans. Democrats Jacky Rosen and Kyrsten Sinema flipped Republican seats in Nevada and Arizona, but it was not enough to tip the balance, so Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley will be free to ram Trump’s right-wing judicial nominees through the Senate for the next two years.
Some on the left are calling for new blood to lead the House in January, but this is no time for on-the-job training. House Democrats should elect Nancy Pelosi as Speaker because she knows the levers of power and she performed ably as speaker of the House in 2007-8, in opposition to George W. Bush. Pelosi also played a key role as Speaker in 2009-10 in passing the bills Barack Obama needed to come out of the House in the first two years of his administration.
Much media attention has been on the newcomers, such as Reps.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Presley of Massachusetts, Rashida Tlaib from Michigan, and Ilhan Omar from Minnesota, but, as of January, Donald Trump will have to answer subpoenas from House committee leaders such as Elijah Cummings, D-Md., incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee; Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., new chair of the Judiciary Committee; and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who will take over as chair of the Intelligence Committee from Devin Nunes, who was one of Trump’s biggest enablers in the House.
Trump, in his petulant press conference the day after the election, said he would negotiate with the Democrats on plans for infrastructure improvements, health care and “whatever they’re looking at,’’ as long as they don’t push investigations of his administration.
“They can play that game, but we can play it better, because we have a thing called the United States Senate,” Trump said. “I could see it being extremely good for me politically because I think I’m better at that game than they are, actually, but we’ll find out.”
Pelosi on Election Night indicated she is ready for a fight with the White House. “Today is more than about Democrats and Republicans. It is about restoring the Constitution’s checks and balances to the Trump administration.”
Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post noted that the government is due to run out of money on Dec. 7. “Don’t be surprised if a continuing resolution passed during the lame-duck session becomes the new majority’s headache when it expires next year. By March 2019, the suspension of the legal limit on federal borrowing (the debt ceiling) will expire. Raising the debt ceiling has gone from a must-do no-brainer to a Republican bargaining chip in a high-stakes game of fiscal roulette nervously watched by global financial markets.”
Then there is the replacement, probably illegal, of Attorney General Jeff Sessions with party hack Matthew Whitaker, Sessions’ former chief of staff, less than a day after the midterm elections. Whitaker’s apparent task is to shut down the investigation of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
The Democratic House should hit the ground running and not only protect Mueller’s investigation but also move bills that would help workers and small businesses, regardless of whether they stand a chance in the Senate or the White House.
House Democrats should hold hearings and pass bills to enact a $15-an-hour minimum wage, expand Medicare to cover all Americans — and improve the coverage for seniors — stop price-gouging by pharmaceutical corporations, rescind the 2017 tax break for billionaires and big corporations and instead cut taxes for workers and small businesses; and pass a new Voting Rights Act establishing that every citizen of voting age has a right to vote, and to have that vote counted, and providing criminal penalties for voter suppression.
As for the 2020 presidential race, the election shows how vulnerable Trump is to a competent challenger. Pollster.com shows the average of Trump’s approval ratings for recent polls was 43.9% on Nov. 6 while his average disapproval ratings was 51.8%. Those are not healthy ratings for re-election.
Trump in 2016 won the White House based on extremely narrow victories in three Great Lakes states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump won Wisconsin by 0.7 points (22,748 votes), Michigan by 0.2 points (10,704 votes) and Pennsylvania by 0.7 points (44,292 votes). All three states had Democratic incumbent senators who were thought to be vulnerable, as well as gubernatorial races. This year Democrats won all of them, including the long-sought ouster of labor-busting Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who was seeking a third term in Wisconsin. Walker finally lost to Tony Evers, a former school teacher who ran with the support of the unions the governor had conspired to crush.
While some lefties would like to recruit a celebrity, such as Oprah Winfrey or Tom Hanks, to run for president, Democrats should nominate someone who actually has served in a public office and can restore public trust in the White House. If Lyin’ Donald Trump hasn’t put to rest the foolish canard that government should be run like a business, we don’t know what will — but government certainly should not be run like a reality TV program.
With the election over, some senators who had deferred on making their ambitions known — particularly those who were up for re-election — are now stirring. Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar have locked up new six-year terms as senators, and they are widely expected to check out opportunities in Iowa and New Hampshire. Joe Biden appears ready to run, Hillary Clinton might give it another try, and many Beto O’Rourke supporters hope he’ll eye a White House run. But another possible candidate who bears watching is Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
Andrew Romano noted at Yahoo.com Nov. 10, “Of all the Democrats who could plausibly play a part in the looming drama of the next presidential campaign, the raspy, rumpled populist emerged from Election Day with by far the most to brag about.”
Brown managed to win in a state that backed Trump by 8% two years ago, and where Republicans swept all of 2018’s other competitive contests, from governor on down.
In fact, Brown received 280,000 more votes than his party’s gubernatorial candidate, Richard Cordray, and 100,000 more than Cordray’s victorious Republican rival, Mike DeWine.
Brown has compiled one of the most liberal and pro-worker voting records in the Senate. He has played down his interest in running for president. But he has released progressive populist policy proposals that would strengthen labor standards and expand collective bargaining rights. And he would implement what he calls a “carrot and stick” approach to big companies that slash labor costs to pad their profits, charging a Corporate Freeloader Fee to companies that pay less than a living wage so that their employees need food stamps, Medicaid and Section 8 housing vouchers.
In his victory speech Nov. 6, Brown noted that he won even as Trump had carried Ohio by eight points in 2016. “That is the message coming out of Ohio in 2018, and that is the blueprint for our nation in 2020,” he concluded. He should offer that blueprint to a national audience. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, December 1, 2018
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