Believe it or not, Speaker Nancy Pelosi may not be the worst of all possible outcomes the Republican Party could find itself facing in January.
In the Senate, it should try to win every seat possible — the Kavanaugh showdown will explain why this matters — and Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., could be a huge asset as Arizona’s next senator, filling the gap left in the GOP lineup since the much-mourned departure of Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.
A big loss of House seats could be a disaster. But a more modest one could be a mixed blessing. Ever since the Democratic consensus dissolved in the late 1960s, unified control has not been good news for the party that held it. It has been, in most cases, short-lived. Since then, the link between control of the Congress and presidential achievement has proved to be specious at best.
Former President Jimmy Carter had a Democratic Congress for all of his four years, and he is remembered as mediocre. A Democratic House for eight years (and Senate for two years) didn’t keep former President Ronald Reagan from genuine greatness. Former President George H.W. Bush, who had both houses against him, had foreign policy successes but ran out of steam when the Cold War expired. On the other hand, former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had two years apiece of unified government, which were followed by massive rebellions in the very next cycle. (For former President George W. Bush, it was a bit more than four years before his party’s repudiation at the ballot box, possibly because of the extraordinary circumstances of his early presidency.)
It was unified control in 1993-1994 and 2009-2010 that allowed Clinton and Obama to attempt to foist wildly complex, expensive, and unpopular healthcare plans on an unwilling public. And it led to massive defeats in the 1994 and 2010 midterm elections, costing Clinton both houses and Obama the House and his filibuster-proof Senate (he would not finally lose the Senate until four years later). In each case, that great defeat frustrated their grander ambitions for a progressive agenda.
Meanwhile, it was unified control in 2005-2007 that led George W. Bush to cling to a failing war policy until it was almost too late. It was only until after they lost that Obama and Clinton pulled in their horns and found a way to win re-election. It was only after losing that Bush changed strategies at the very last moment, bringing Iraq back from the brink. For most presidents in the post-’60s picture, control of the government has not been their friend.
Trump needs restraints much more than they did. He is eccentric by even their standards, and his opponents, on edge to begin with, do not have the outlets to deal with their rage. Democrats at least seem to comprise more of the country — Trump did lose the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, after all — even though House Republicans won the popular vote in 2016. But despite their election performance, the Democrats hold no levers of power in the federal government and relatively few in state governments. They have no way to exercise power, to make their views heard. (In the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Democratic candidate Al Gore, but barely, and with huge losses in the U.S. Senate, which tipped to Democrats just a few months later.)
Never before has there been an election result where the plurality of those voting for president were effectively shut out of the national government — a result that doubtless inflamed the feelings of those already stunned and appalled by an outcome they hated, and hadn’t been warned to expect. It might be to the good if this election gives to this group just enough power to douse their rage. If it remains bottled up till the 2020 election — when the presidency will be in the line, along with the Congress — the GOP might not like what it gets.
