Tuesday didn’t represent the beginning of the end. It’s not even the end of the beginning. But it was a win, and we shouldn’t doubt that.
It was a win because it actually pushed back against Trump. We didn’t get the red tsunami some right-wingers predicted.
It was a win because Democrats took the House. That gives them a position to block Republican attacks on Obamacare, further tax cut bills, and other Republican idiocy. They’ll also have the power to launch investigations. Trump’s already uttering dire threats if they try; I doubt he’ll back them up.
Kris Kobach, vote-suppression guru, lost in Kansas. Kim Davis, the Clerk of Court who refused to let gay couples get marriage licenses, lost the election. Steve West, whose own kids denounced him as a homophobe, lost. Colorado elected the nation’s first gay governor, with the “first first man.” There’s a new surge of Democratic women into office including lesbian, Native American, Latina and black officials. That’s good now, and it’s good in the long term. There’s a bench of politicians to draw from for future national campaigns. And more people will look and see more diverse body of elected officials. That changes our view of what’s possible.
So does the fact Republicans didn’t crush all opposition. Trump isn’t a juggernaut who can’t lose. We aren’t slitting our own throats by fighting him.
A lot of individual races and states went badly. But despite all the gloom and doom that Democrats should have done better, it’s comparable (as noted in the first link) to the 2010 Tea Party campaign. Nobody denied that was a win for the right.
So even though there is much work yet to do, for the rest of this week I’m happy just to enjoy the win.
Even though I don’t live in the US myself, I’m very happy about the mid-term election results too. This is partly because I now have family living in America (a brother of mine resides in Washington state), but also because I just consider Trump and his party such a disaster (not just for the US, but for the world as a whole) that anything which curbs their power can only be a good thing in my eyes. Of course, our own Trump supporters (of which there seem to be a surprising and depressing number here in Australia) aren’t happy, though at least one of them (some neocon nitwit by the name of Greg Sheridan, who writes for one of the country’s more “respectable” Murdoch rags) seems to be doing his best to put a positive spin on the whole thing. Apparently, the election results were very good news for The Beloved Leader (funny how Trump himself doesn’t seem to see them that way), and a clear sign of his genius and ability to play the American political system like a game of seven-dimensional chess (or whatever the cliche is).
We’re getting some of that over here too. I’ll be linking to some of it next week.