(Dobbs) So Much Better Than It Might Have Been
They crazies aren't gone, but they're not in charge either.
Just two days ago, writing about Ukraine’s successes against Russia, I said they’re not decisive enough to pop open the champagne, but that a glass of wine wouldn’t hurt.
Today, with the outcomes of Tuesday’s U.S. election exceeding conventional expectations for the Democrats— with the Republican rout only turning out to be a Republican ripple, if even that— make it two glasses. Two to toast the wisdom of the American people. Two to toast the future.
This doesn’t mean that the chaos and craziness and subterfuge and sedition are over. The Trump Party’s normalization of lies, its contempt for science, its curtailment of civil rights, its control over women’s own bodies, its passion for guns, its proliferation of racism and anti-semitism and homophobia, its manipulation of election laws, its onslaughts against our institutions of justice, and its attacks on our democracy won’t disappear. Those people are still out there. Some with a twisted read on the Constitution and a warped vision of America’s future lost their election bids, but some still won. The citizens who voted for them haven’t gone away, either.
While a score of seats are yet to be called for the House of Representatives, odds still are that Republicans will win. If they do, although they will rule with a razor-thin edge, the take-no-prisoners Party of Trump will still have some sway, if not supremacy, over the affairs of the nation. What that means among other things is, after its intensive focus this past year on the crimes and causes of January 6th, the House will go blind. And if the most radical remaining representatives are allowed to influence its agenda, the conduct of the president’s son Hunter Biden will be investigated as if it has been a greater threat to our nation than the insurrection, and there will be ill-begotten efforts to impeach everyone from Attorney General Merrick Garland to President Biden himself.
But these people will not have their hands on the wheel of the ship of state, and they will not have the Senate to sanction their appalling ambitions. The ship will stay afloat. The governor of New Hampshire, the Republican governor Chris Sununu put it well, saying voters this year decided, “We can fix policy later, we’re going to fix crazy now.” The crazies still will be able to start a few bad initiatives, but they won’t be able to stop some good ones.
And for anyone who is not with the crazies and sides with the Democrats, here are four layers of silver lining.
The first is, with control of the Senate now out of play, it’s likely that Republican turnout will be diminished in Georgia’s special election early next month between Republican Herschel Walker and Democrat Raphael Warnock, giving Warnock an edge and improving the odds that Democratic leverage in the Senate will end up one vote stronger for this coming term than it was in the term now ending.
The second is, with Republican Mitch McConnell still just the minority leader, the Senate majority remains in the President’s party’s hands, which means he can continue to win confirmation for judges who are not Trump Party acolytes.
Third, if Donald Trump’s domination over the Republican Party is diminished— even if the narcissist himself remains unbowed— maybe some members of the minority party will decide it’s in their own interest, if not the nation’s, to work across the aisle to get things done.
Finally, even if Republicans control the House, there is an effective check on their worst excesses: the bully pulpit, which remains in the hands of a president who is not a bully.
Trump’s collaborator Steve Bannon said last weekend while campaigning in Arizona for Trump Party candidates, “The future is here on Tuesday.”
He was so right. It’s just not the future he had in mind.
Over almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 36-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
Greg...spot on right! Thank you
The temporary respite from the threat of "the red wave" still harbors some worries. There are a lot of crazies out there, as we see by their election denying candidates and "man on the street" interviews.
trump ushered in the era of allowing fascist groups to feel legitimate and there a a lot of folks who
side with there mantras. I see better education as our only hope of stacking more sane voters on the side of logic, truth and civility.