Well, I guess there wasn't a blue wave or a red wave; instead, there was just kind of a puke green splash. The Democrats took the House, by a pretty small margin, beginning at least two years of a divided Congress. And they’ll almost certainly screw it up because they are dumb, crazy, and bad.
It’s annoying to lose anything, especially to a party that is so manifestly unworthy, but the nature of an electorate that is split 50/50 is splitting. Chin up. Remember, we have the other half of Congress and the presidency and the courts too, so our agenda is not totally stalled. If you are going to lose anything, lose the House. It’s the Maroon 5 of our governmental institutions – always there, but no one really likes it.
We won more seats in the Senate, meaning Cocaine Mitch’s expanded cartel is going to be pushing even more conservative judges into our lib-infested courts. It was pretty great. Beto crashed his party’s $70 million car into Ted Cruz and skateboarded away from the wreck. Rick Scott scraped out a narrow win and will now have six years on the national stage where people around the country will wonder “Wasn’t he the lead singer for Midnight Oil?”
And we’re rid of Bob Corker and Jeff Flake – ahoy, Conservative, Inc., they’re now available to headline your cruises! On the downside, we still have the useless Ben Sasse, until a real conservative primaries him, and Utah decided it would be funny to send us Mitt Romney for some reason that remains unclear. Get ready for his binders full of virtue signaling to the very same media that humiliated him in 2012. But in general, the Fredocon contingent is definitely in decline.
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No, you never win by losing, but there is opportunity for the GOP in this win. When life gives you lemons, you should take those lemons, sell them, and buy beer. While the loss of the House is annoying, Trump has options because he can play it successfully whether the Democrats make the smart move – pretending to be bipartisan – or do what they are inclined to do and act like horrible creepy fascist weirdos. Nancy Pelosi’s problem is that though she’s smart enough to see that “Everybody hug” is the smart play, her insane caucus is likely to demand the horrible creepy fascist weirdo option.
Pelosi outlined the foundations of a bipartisan charade in her odd victory speech with the clown car crew that will make up the new House leadership Tuesday night. Infrastructure programs and drug price reform were her top objectives. The thing is, both ideas are shovel-ready for Trump to steal.
After all, Trump was promising an infrastructure plan back during his campaign; it was the GOP that was stalling it, not the Democrats. He should push the infrastructure program he always wanted, and dare the Democrats to oppose him. If he wants to be really aggressive, he should aim it towards minority communities that the Democrats have traditionally paid attention to right before elections and then ignored for the next two years. He should insist that those communities get a share of the work and the skill training that goes with it, and he should go to them and take credit for it. Polls already show minority approval of Trump is higher than for any other Republican – time to push that.
And Trump has no lingering attachment to conservative doctrine that would stop him from brutalizing Big Pharma for its drug price shenanigans. The giant drug companies still manage to exploit Republicans who defend them with talk of “free markets” and stuff – when it comes to these corporations, the quotation marks are appropriate. Big Pharma pushed Obamacare down our throats and has been paying off the GOP suckers to do its duty work for decades because of Muh Capitalism. But if their monopolies and scams are capitalism, get us some Che T-shirts because even the Republican mainstream is getting tired of water-carrying for the pill-pushers. When Hugh Hewitt, a solid guy with his finger on the weak pulse of the establishment, starts railing about their perfidy on his radio show, they’re prime to be dumped.
Remember how Bill Clinton triangulated after the 1994 election? That's the model. As my new book Militant Normals: How Regular Americans Are Rebelling Against the Elite to Reclaim Our Democracy, explains, Normal Americans are not bound by ideology – they are mad at being shafted, and when they see Canadians paying a fraction of what it costs for their Humira, they get ticked. One of the nice things about the Trump era is that we are now woke to the fact that big corporations are not necessarily paragons of capitalism but rather socialists dressed up as capitalists to complete the grift. Trump won’t hesitate for a second to join the Dems in neutering the drug companies’ ability to do what they’ve been doing to us for years.
Now, the smart move for the Democrats is to go along and rack up accomplishments, because these purple districts that just elected Democrats want to see progress. These are not the hardcore commie lefty districts you find on the coasts. These are suburban districts, with vast numbers of unsatisfied, neurotic college-educated women who are scared of Trump, and who are probably secretly attracted to his virility – it’s weird and there’s no need to explore that further. Regardless, they would happily vote for the usual old-school GOP dork in normal elections, and even though this time they sent a bitter, frustrated message, they are still suckers for politicians who “get things done.” But the leftist crew from the coastal urban kale-munching strongholds are the ones with the seniority and the ones who will guide the Democrat Party over the next two years. And they do not want to work together for a brighter tomorrow.
No, they want all #resistance, all of the time, and they are going to do everything they can to appease their looney base by launching investigations and screaming and yelling. That's not going to help the newbies keep those new House seats in 2020. It’s going to be especially funny when all these rookies who promised the suckers back home they would never vote for that San Francisco liberal monster get strong-armed into casting their very first vote for Mistress Nancy.
And if they decide to obstruct and agitate, then Trump can be in opposition to them and run against the do-nothing House in 2020. Nobody is better than Trump when he has an enemy. I’m kind of hoping the Democrats choose the path of jerkiness just for the nicknames he’ll bestow in his tweets.
Oh, and please, impeach him over Russia Treason Traitor stuff. Please. Toss the Trump in that briar patch and he’ll be president forever.
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