So... what happened? The GOP not only held the Senate-- they outperformed and gained more seats than most observers expected, while the Democrats eked out a narrow House majority. Briefly on the Senate, Heitkamp's loss was easily predictable, since she had no business being in the Senate in the first place, and given that, the Democrat's chances of taking the Senate were close to nil. Donnelly's polls showed him with a slight lead, but the lead wasn't big, so his loss isn't a big shocker, and remember that he, too, had no business being in the Senate. Indiana is a strong Republican state, and he only won six years ago because his opponent then was Richard rape-babies-are-god's-plan Mourdock. McCaskill's nine lives ran out last night, and while I was reluctant to bet against her given her record of pulling undeserved victories out of a hat, Hawley wasn't Akin. Nelson's loss was a bit more surprising, but Florida is as Florida does, and Nelson's polling lead wasn't that strong anyway. So, taken together, none of the Democrats' losses were individually shocking. The relevant point to make, though, is that the Republicans outperformed the polls. Donnelly and Nelson, for example, were leading in their polls. McCaskill was in a statistical tie. There really may be something going on here with Republicans outperforming the polls.
And can you please stop talking about that Texas twerp now? He never had a chance. We are stuck with the biggest douchebag in the Senate because Texas is Texas. They will forever have their heads up their asses because someone told them there's guns and oil up there, but that doesn't mean the rest of us have to delude ourselves about the chances of someone like O'Rourke.
The House? I warned you the other day not to look at the total number of votes nationwide for all Democratic and Republican House candidates, and right now, a bunch of hacks are doing just that. Don't. However, polling on House elections is hard. Too many races, not enough incentive. So, we don't generally have good polling data on individual races. We just get crappy things like the generic ballot question, and that misses the point since the real ballot is rather non-generic. Pete Sessions's loss was noteworthy because of his rank in Congress, and it was fun to see that teabagger, David Brat, lose in a not-quite-as-shocking as his original victory turn, but a Democratic takeover was the slight statistical favorite. It happened.
A few points on that. The default for the House of Representatives is Republican, largely because Democrats cluster in cities, which creates a natural partisan "packing." All Republicans have to do to pull off a partisan gerrymander is not break up urban areas too much, and defend that decision under the grounds that they are keeping communities of interest together, drawing majority-minority districts, etc. They can, and sometimes do go further, but given where Democrats live, it is really easy to draw a Republican partisan gerrymander, and requires creativity to undo one. Urbanization is the key here, and that means Democrats only take the House when there is an unpopular Republican president giving them the political wind at their backs. Like 2018. Or 2006. Otherwise, political demographics give a natural edge to the GOP. This is important.
Unified government is rather uncommon, and presidents don't tend to keep it for long. Obama had it for two years: 2009-10. Bill Clinton had it for two years: 1993-4. Bush the Elder never had it. Reagan never had it. Then, we can go back to Democratic presidents during the era of Democratic dominance of Congress, back when the South was Democratic, but unified government is rare. Bush the Younger was lucky in this respect. He had a spot of it at the start of his first term, before Jeffords threw control of the Senate to the Democratic Party. Then, after 9/11, we had a weird midterm in which the GOP gained seats, and Dubya had four years of unified government, but mostly, divided government is kind of a default. Midterms produce it.
A midterm just produced divided government. Some things still work. And yet, that may have been the weird result of a booming economy and Trump's trumpiness canceling each other out. Still, unified government is not, apparently, a stable political state.
At the end of the day, when we look back at the 2018 midterm, it just looks like a relatively normal midterm, save for the fact that the Senate map was very favorable to the GOP. The House flipped because in a midterm, the president's party loses seats. Not a lot this year because... uh... in my assessment, because the economy is fucking awesome, but regardless, the pattern held. The Senate? For whatever reason, not only did the favorable map allow the GOP to keep its majority, the party outperformed. And that's something to watch.
What now? Where do we go from here? Leading up to the election, I did a little series on "The stakes of the 2018 election," because every election, some jackass says, "this is the most important election of our lifetimes!" And... no. Just... no. That was 2016. That ship has sailed, that toothpaste is out of the tube, that dam has burst, that metaphor is metaphoring all over the place. No matter what happened yesterday, we were already in a really bad place, and our paddle is insufficient for the fluid in which we find ourselves, if it is, indeed, fluid. An economy can grow amid political authoritarianism. Political rights are severely restricted in China, but their economy has developed at a rapid pace over the last several decades. I wouldn't trade their pace of economic development for the political rights we have here. And that's without getting into the more terrifying horror stories of authoritarianism. Yes, the economy is in great shape, but a) that's because capitalism works independently of whoever is in the White House until hit by an exogenous shock, b) we haven't had an exogenous shock, c) Trump doesn't know how to handle an exogenous shock, and d) there are more worrying things than the economy anyway, when it comes to Trump.
With that in mind, what might the next two years have in store for us? The obvious short answer is, who the fuck knows?! Trump is reckless and impulsive. We don't know, precisely, what he'll do. However, there are a few things we do know, or that are highly likely to happen.
1) Total legislative-executive gridlock. There is precisely zero chance of any legislation on anything, except to "keep the lights on," meaning continuing resolutions to avert government shutdowns. We will probably have shutdowns. Several of them. They will accomplish nothing, and nothing else will happen. For what it's worth, divided government didn't use to mean total gridlock. David Mayhew's important book, Divided We Govern, actually counted up major pieces of legislation enacted during times of unified and divided government, and found that the same amount of stuff happened. This was before we got the modern period of extreme polarization. Add to the extreme polarization Trump's insistence on total assholery in all matters, and nothing will happen, except stupid, pointless shutdowns, yelling, threats, and possibly more of Trump's psychopathic brownshirts (whitesheets?) committing acts of violence against Democrats for him during these periods.
2) Bye-bye, Sessions, Rosenstein and Mueller. Trump has been itching to conduct a purge of the DoJ, and end the Mueller investigation. So far, he has been able to console himself with the fact that Nunes was running a counter-operation for him. That combined with the fact that firing Mueller before the election might cause blowback, and he didn't pull the trigger. Ideal time for some firings? Right now. As far away from 2020 as possible, and as quickly as possible, before Mueller can do anything else. Mueller might have been able to stick around if the GOP kept the House because burying the report would be easier, but with the House in Democratic hands, Trump needs Mueller gone. He has wanted Sessions gone for a long time now. There's a Saturday Night Massacre coming, and yes, that kind of terminology has some bad connotations right now, but you know what? Too bad.
3) Executive orders. Trump has governed largely through executive orders, and hey! Remember when the Republican Party hated those things? Of course, that was when they were issued by a black dude with a "D" after his name, so it was obviously bullshit. Miles's law in action. Remember Miles's law? Where you stand depends upon where you sit. The more hemmed in Trump finds himself legislatively, the more he turns to unilateral executive action.
4) That leads to someplace really dangerous, potentially. Where does the presidency have the most power? The military. Trump would love to be a wartime president. I've been warning since the start that this is one of the biggest dangers of Trump in the White House, and without the House of Representatives, the pressure builds. He can't possibly get any legislation, the pressure will build in terms of legislative oversight, and he may very well try to direct policy outwards through military action. Authoritarianism 101. It's all about consolidation of power. So far, he has been satisfied with ramping up a trade war, but the more frustrated he gets domestically, the more of an outlet he may want for his rage, and the more of a need he will have to direct the country in a way that consolidates executive power. Nothing does that like the exercise of war powers.
5) Investigations. Part of 4 will be dependent on Trump's level of frustration, but what happens in terms of congressional investigations? The House will start doing what Congress is supposed to do, which is investigate presidential malfeasance. But, Trump won't cooperate, and nobody in the executive branch will cooperate. We're about to have a legal showdown, and find out what happens when the executive branch refuses to respond to congressional subpoenas and demands for information. We're going to see just how far "executive privilege" can be stretched, and how complete Trump's control of the Judiciary is. Make no mistake, though. If there is a document or testimony that would hurt Trump, the House won't get it. No way, no how. The House will say, "hey! You have to! Gimme!" Trump's response? "Who's gonna make me?!"
Oh, and remember that this is all kind of pointless anyway. Has anyone read the latest climate reports? We're pretty much past the point of no return, doing nothing, and condemning the future. And when was the last time you thought about the fact that 10,000 or so people die every day due to waterborne pathogens, and we could stop that with water sanitation, if anyone in this country cared? I'd say that Nero is fiddling as Rome burns, but Trump's tiny, tiny fingers could never play a fiddle. Here's something uplifting instead. Stuart Duncan. He can play a fiddle while Venice sinks.
I hope you aren't celebrating anything. But here's some cheerful bluegrass!
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