Everything Different, Nothing Changed

Election 2014 has now come and gone.  The votes have been counted.  The commentators have analyzed every minute data point and drawn whatever conclusions they likely set out to prove in the first place.  The political parties have claimed their victories or expressed their anguish as appropriate.

Numerically, the end result was a bigger Republican majority in the House, and a shifting of the majority in the Senate – a place where in fact the “majority” rarely actually rules.  All Senate committee chairs will change over, and a new Republican Majority Leader will manage what gets voted upon.  With additional major gains in state governorships and legislatures, the Republican Party rightly deserves congratulations for their numerous victories.  But amidst the declarations that “the people have spoken” also comes the question: can this political party, previously consigned to six years of nothing but blind, reflexive opposition, actually govern with an eye to all Americans versus just being a negative voice echoing the narrow base of their party?

The people may have “spoken,” but the loudest voice was heard from those who never made it to the polling booths.  Less than 40% of eligible citizens voted on November 4^th, a record low.  So any claims of victory or synchronicity with the American public ring quite hollow.  Public approval of Congress in general, and each political party, still hovers in the teens and low 20s percentage.  Which actually makes President Obama’s 40% approval rating –the central issue of the campaign for both parties – nevertheless look comparatively like a sweeping endorsement!  A majority of the minority governs America today.

Historically, the political party results simply followed past traditions.  In the sixth year, the incumbent president’s party virtually always loses ground in Congress.  And the party that gains always claims “a message from the people.”  There is a message, yes; but the politicians rarely hear it.  In truth, with so much expectation placed upon all presidents that can never be fulfilled, by year six the people are tired of the incumbent.  The original energy has waned, the expectations achieved are far less, and Americans’ short memory begins its habitual longing for “something new.”  Given that we have just borne witness to the worst case of Congressional obstructionism of a president since the post-Civil War Congress of 1865-1868 stripped President Andrew Johnson of much control over anything, high discontent with Obama’s perceived lack of outcomes was inevitable.

After several recent campaigns of Republican candidates infected with foot-in-mouth disease, this year the GOP: managed to avoid flawed, extreme candidates saying outright insulting and stupid things; brought forth no other real issue other than public dissatisfaction of Obama; avoided any real discussion of political/social issues or position-taking that would give the election substance; talked in “moderate” terms, hiding their true political positions; and drove home the public’s fear factors around illegal immigration (which will cost them politically long-term), Ebola (for the one death and half-dozen or so infections to date in America), and ISIL (which are still in Syria and Iraq at last check).  Tactically, their strategy worked.

Meanwhile, the Democrats retreated to the hills, unwilling to stand and defend their ground of legitimate accomplishments, avoided discussion of the fact of a significantly improved economy (voters’ #1 issue), sidelined their president, and thereby bumbled their way into surrender.  In the wilderness of the 2014 campaign, Democrats could never find a real message they could articulate that would connect effectively with the public.  The result: everything now looks different on its face.

So what comes next?  In the aftermath of the vote counting, Obama, McConnell and Boehner met together, ate lunch, and talked about “working together like the American people expect.”  That make-nice atmosphere lasted until about dinnertime.  Obama’s promise to “act where Congress won’t” led to accusations from McConnell about “poisoning the well” for the future and Boehner’s objection about “usurping Congress and the legislative process.”  It all ignored the reality that Congress has not accomplished much of anything the past six years following their dead-end “process” while it was encamped around a well that has been long-since poisoned.

So nothing has truly changed.  It will now be two more years of stalemate and inaction, precipice politics, even more nonsensical committee hearings strictly for public show, and continuing appeals not to the independent middle of the American citizenry, but to the hard edges.

Senate Democrats will stay tightly together, reversing roles to now be the minority effectively blocking the Republican majority.  Senate Republicans will still be a fractured party of go-it- my-own-way individuals jockeying for individual power while organizing their 2016 presidential campaigns.  House Republicans will still be held captive by their 40-50 extreme Tea Party members, limiting the Speaker’s ability to put forward any real substantive propositions meaningful to Middle Americans.  Lots of noise, overwhelming meaningful discussion; name-calling and accusations overwhelming meaningful action; current needs overwhelmed by the 2016 election.

2016 will not be the same political territory as 2014.  The voting numbers and demographics will change, pulled in by even further disgust with “those in Washington” and the potential attraction of a very enticing presidential race.  The contested seats in the Senate, highly favorable to the Republicans in 2014, will swing back in favor of the Democrats.  And if this new Republican Congress follows the path of previous Democrat and Republican Congresses over this past decade who mistakenly believed that their numerical majority endorsed them to go overboard with their sense of a “voter mandate,” the 2016 election will do what the past several elections have done: punish the overreach and yet again reverse the party in power.

So from time to time, each party can enjoy its day in the sun of winning the voters.  But “majority rules” all too often yields “majority fools.”  And so we go back and forth with one course correction after another.  Ultimately, favorable redistricting and new voter law hurdles will hide bad performance for only so long.  And there does not seem an assessment of any good performance much in evidence.  As the political pendulum continues its swing to the extremes of its arc, politicians should remember the destiny of the pendulum: from the one extreme end, it moves to the opposite polarity.  But each subsequent swing gradually over time moves the arc to its ultimate resting place – sitting quietly still in the middle.  It is in that middle that our political life awaits its resting place.

©  2014   Randy Bell              www.ThoughtsFromTheMountain.blogspot.com