On Tuesday, Democrats picked up votes in states where Trump victories were key to taking the White House in 2016. That is not a sign of approval of the Democrat’s 2016 platform, and those voters have not been magically transformed into progressives. Instead, they elected Democrats to make progress where Republicans have not. If Democrats want to keep these supporters, they must meet their demands rather than echo the partisan grandstanding of some of their colleagues in the Senate. And House Republicans must be ready to show leadership of their own.
While subpoenas and investigations into just what has been happening in the Oval Office and which foreign governments have been enriching a sitting president will perhaps finally fish out President Trump’s tax returns, Democrats must be careful to not add to the spectacle that voters rebuked in Republican leadership.
Fast and furious calls for impeachment without waiting for the conclusions of the Mueller investigation, for example, would be a clear mistake, further dividing the country and giving a clear talking point of revenge-happy Democrats uninterested in actually doing the work of governing.
Instead, Democrats in the House would do well to focus on bipartisan priorities, making progress in areas where Trump himself has declared presidential interest. From criminal justice reform to infrastructure to healthcare, if Democrats care for their much-championed progress, they would be wise to hold to workable and popular policy goals rather that jumping head first into the quagmire of gridlock.
For their part, Republicans should meet the challenge of a Democratic House with good governance of their own, demonstrating that the public can still look to the GOP for leadership on key issues.
Ideally, that would involve bipartisan work on broadly popular issues crafted with enough support to be palatable by the Republican-dominated Senate. Each victory that has real gains for voters in terms of bringing down healthcare costs, fixing crumpling infrastructure, and reforming costly criminal justice provisions while keeping the economy strong will be shows of good faith leadership impossible for Democratic candidates in 2020 to push back against.
That approach would rob Democrats of their key campaign points in 2020 and restore faith from the GOP electorate in Republican lawmakers making good on helping constituents.
