As a confirmed “Never Trumper,” I would be thrilled, if there were no other considerations, to see Donald Trump’s Republican Party get blitzed in these elections and Trump therefore be humiliated.
But there are indeed other considerations. This election is not about Trump. For the best governance of this great land for the next two years, I would vote for a Republican for almost every federal office, anywhere in the country, on this year’s ballot.
For Senate races, the choice would be easy. The Senate votes on judicial nominations, and Republicans consistently vote for responsible, constitutionalist judges. Democrats don’t.
The Democrats’ judiciary is one in which Little Sisters of the Poor would be forced to stop their ministry to poor people; free speech is not an inherent right but only a privilege to be “doled out” by the government; government can force people out of their homes for the benefit of big corporations; government can force people to buy health insurance they don’t want; Asian-Americans are treated as second-class citizens; conservative Latinos are barred from office; and the presumption of innocence can be sacrificed for political purposes.
Democrats in the Senate also lead their party ever-more leftward, with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., – one of the most extreme liberals in office today – as their leader, and far-left Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, as their rising stars.
The Senate, though, is almost certainly going to remain in Republican hands. The biggest fight is for control of the House. On a macro level, this is hugely important.
First, if Democrats control the House, there is virtually no chance Congress will spend two years wrestling with legislation addressing needs of the public. Instead, the New York Times reports Democrats are planning for political revenge, with a blitzkrieg of “investigations into nearly every corner of the Trump administration.” Large numbers of House Democrats are likely to push for impeachment either of Trump or, following Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s lead, of newly appointed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
It doesn’t matter that, with the Senate probably firmly in Republican hands, there would be no chance of securing the two-thirds vote needed there to remove either one from office. The very effort to impeach would dominate House activity and headlines, further ratchet up a toxic political atmosphere, detract from any ability to handle even the most basic legislation, and cause political and cultural instability that could shake the U.S. economy and undermine the country’s international standing.
Even apart from the prospect of those ever-more-horrid political battles, the policy implications of a Democratic House, especially in the form of missed opportunities, likely would be dire. It has long been my contention that the next two years will see the United States reach the tipping point where dangerous debt levels turn into catastrophic ones. While Trump and a GOP Congress have been just as awful together on this front as were Obama and a Democratic Congress in 2009-10, Trump now is pushing hard for fiscal discipline (finally!).
There is no way on Earth that a Democratic House, with the constitutional power of the purse, will agree to such discipline. But there is at least a chance that a Republican House, following the lead of a president of its own party, will.
Likewise, Trump’s important deregulatory efforts will remain solely the subject of executive orders or enforcement choices, rather than implemented into actual legislation, if Democrats take the House. So too with literally hundreds of reformist, House Republican-sponsored bills that actually enjoy reasonable levels of support from Democrats that, with a few more Republican Senate members, might overcome Senate filibusters – but those bills will never be re-passed in a House led by Democrats.
They include, for example, a bill to help low-income people find entry-level jobs, and another to save local jobs dependent on the “franchisee” model of business especially prevalent in the food service industry.
In short, there are plenty of ways that another Republican-led Congress can pass constructive (and not terribly ideological, much less divisive) legislation – but very few, if any, that a Democratic-led House, with other priorities, will ever work with a GOP Senate and president to pass anything worthwhile.
Yes, Trump will still be Trump. From my standpoint, that’s awful. But as enticing as it might be to put a crimp in his ego by hanging electoral defeat on his Republican allies, it would be counterproductive to do so. A Democratic House is a recipe for pitched political warfare without accomplishment. That’s not something this “Never Trumper” can support.
Quin Hillyer (@QuinHillyer) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a former associate editorial page editor for the Washington Examiner, and is the author of “The Accidental Prophet” trilogy of recently published satirical, literary novels.
