I don't remember a victory being this important
...it's a blast and a relief to win the House majority, of course, but it's impossible to take all of this in without reflecting on just how devastating a loss would have been.
It makes me much more grateful for this victory than I've ever felt before. Our situation with Trump still in office is as precarious as ever, but it would have been nearly impossible to see through the noise to some future win for Democrats, if we lost. Not impossible (I lived through the 'Gingrich revolution'), but dangerously close to a fascist state, if we lost to this crop of rabid republicans.
You could see the prospect of the Democratic party becoming even more toothless in the fight against Trump, without power to do much more than speak out and write strongly worded letters of opposition.
Now the Democratic party can issue subpoenas, call witnesses before committees, and initiate oversight and investigations, which our party will direct and control, of Trump administration malfeasance, graft, and criminality.
I know this is trite and an oversimplification, but America was awakened again last night. With the nation rocking a cool shade of blue this morning, our Democratic party has a consequential voice again. The Democratic-led House has a constitutional impetus and full reign to initiate financial legislation, hold oversight investigations, and, when appropriate, initiate impeachment proceedings.
Trump's rubber stamp is shelved. House Democrats will be an effective block of republican initiatives from the Senate, and a formidable force in budget negotiations. No more tax giveaways to the rich, no more blank checks to the military, no more swipes at our health care benefits under the Affordable Care Act.
More importantly, we owe the republican party nothing but scorn for their attempts to dismantle our democratic institutions and our social safety nets. Republicans behaved as if they would never be forced to account for their thievery, and their evisceration of standards and norms which once served to make even a divided Congress operate with as much comity and cooperation as politically possible, demands redress.
I daresay, this new Democratic-controlled Congress should be loath to allow any republican legislator to gain leverage at the negotiating table, especially without some reckoning from them for the way Democrats were locked out of any ability to influence Trump-enabling legislation in the last term. It's been such a power-grab by republicans and the WH, that a return to regular order will look like a revolution.
Democrats should think long and hard about making any gestures or concessions in the name of behaving better toward republicans than they acted toward us. The criminals in that party are unrepentant, and determined to resume inflicting harm the minute they get their foot back in the door.
Comity should be about more than just offering the other cheek. There should be some demonstrable benefit to our agenda from any deals with the republican opposition. Congress isn't a social club. The steamrolling Democrats have received from the republican party in recent years demands that they execute their politics, in power, with the same ruthlessness their opposition employed.
The stakes for Americans, for our Democratic party to prevail, couldn't be higher or more critical.
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