From the Ground Up

The talking heads of the political right are doing their best to spin the midterm election as a victory for Trump and the GOP.  After all, the Republicans gained a slightly firmer grip on the Senate.  And this is clearly, they say, a vindication of Trump’s immigration policy, and of his insistence on making immigration the focus of the election.  As usual, they are missing the point rather badly.

          The Democrats’ overwhelming onslaught against the Republican House certainly gives them a considerably stronger position from which to oppose the GOP’s hate-mongering and corporate stoogery, although it doesn’t do much to protect our judicial system from further degradation.  But that is only the short-term view of what happened; a longer-term view suggests rather more portentous consequences.

          One really interesting feature of this onslaught is that it has been a truly grass-roots phenomenon.  Many of the winners in this election are newcomers to politics, or to campaigning for office.  Some of them defeated establishment Democrats in the primaries.  Many of them appealed to constituencies who had not traditionally been active voters.  Many of them took strongly progressive stands on a range of hot button issues.  And the success of this movement in Congress was mirrored in state legislatures, governorships, and state attorneys general.  This was a popular uprising—an uprising of the people.

          And what an assortment of rebels:  women, black people, indigenous people; people whose families only recently arrived from Asia or Africa or Latin America; people openly exhibiting nonstandard sexual proclivities; scientists and teachers; Muslims!  Omigawd!  This House election was as clear a repudiation of Trump’s racism and sexism as one could ask for.  One wonders if the hoary traditions of our federal government can survive.  There are certainly enough of these new folks to stir up a bit of trouble, if they will but do so.  And there is no telling where a bit of trouble might lead.

            The Senate is relatively immune to this kind of invasion.  Senators serve longer terms, and thus are in a position to solidify their power base more effectively.  They are never all up for election at once.  Newcomers have to compete in a much larger venue.  And, what is perhaps the most important dynamic in current US politics, the urban-rural divide favors the Senate.  Any changes in the Senate are likely to be incremental.  

            I have no love for the Democratic party.  It is a proven master of adopting losing strategies against the GOP; and while it has not adopted the hate-mongering of the latter, it is nearly as much a tool of the corporate sector.  But it is the only opposition party with any life, and our election laws stand as an almost insurmountable barrier to the emergence of any other party.  Meanwhile, the GOP continues its descent into racism and fascism.  So I am encouraged by any sort of victory against the GOP.  

          Only a fool would venture to predict where all this will lead; maybe it will lead nowhere, or maybe to a backlash that will make matters worse.  But if it does effect productive change in the Democratic party, and thence the federal government, it will have proceeded in the way that all lasting change must.  It will have proceeded from the ground up.