Posted on 11/09/2020 6:00:20 AM PST by Kaslin
One way to interpret the results of the 2020 election is that voters want their political leaders to keep fighting with one another.
By that theory, voters appear to have narrowly replaced Donald Trump with Joe Biden, left the Senate with a slim Republican majority, and kept the House under slightly diminished Democratic control because they crave more dysfunction and mutual recrimination. They hope that Bernie Sanders, the Squad, and their allies will lean hard on Biden to be "the most progressive president in American history," that the most Trumpian members of the GOP caucus will obstruct Biden on everything, and that the resulting ideological warfare will generate maximum anger and minimal achievement.
The hypothesis fits the election results. But does any rational person believe it's what most Americans want?
Here's a contrary premise: Americans voted for less drama and strife, not more. They endorsed no sweeping transformation, and would like Washington to govern accordingly. They want the next president not to repeat the mistake that Trump, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush made — claiming that the election supplied a mandate for an ambitious legislative agenda and a green light to pursue it by any means necessary. Most Americans, I suggest, would rather get through the next four years without major bills being passed on rigid party-line votes, without sharp policy shifts for which there is no consensus, without the Senate refusing to confirm White House nominees, and without the president resorting to rule by executive order.
Needless to say, that isn't the way Trump speaks. The 45th president proved better at burning bridges than building them. Some of his most significant accomplishments on Capitol Hill — the 2017 tax cuts, the confirmation of three Supreme Court justices, his acquittal by the Senate in the impeachment trial — relied almost wholly on one-party support.
To be fair, the scourge of no-compromise voting antedates Trump. The Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank Act, two of Obama's most significant successes, were passed largely along party lines. Conversely, Republican attempts to repeal Obamacare were also passed by the House or the Senate with unipartisan backing. The measures went nowhere, but they reflected the inflexibility that has become such a part of Washington culture.
Just as bad is the accelerating trend of presidents imposing controversial policies through executive orders — what Obama called his "pen and phone" approach. Bush unilaterally ordered the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" in the war on terror, flouting the prohibition of torture under US law. Obama acknowledged that he had no authority to waive the deportation of the undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers, but then did so anyway in 2012. After Congress refused funding for a massive wall on the Mexican border, Trump declared that an "emergency" empowered him to spend the money without authorization.
Republicans must do their part, too. Senator Mitch McConnell needs to emphasize not that he wants to make Biden a one-term president — as he infamously said about Obama in 2010 — but that he is ready and willing to work with Biden on reducing the country's partisan fever. With a longtime Senate colleague in the White House, McConnell ought to relish the chance to craft legislation that both Democrats and Republicans can support. Many Democrats regard McConnell as an implacable Machiavellian foe determined to strangle the Biden administration in its cradle. I would argue instead that he is as much an institutionalist as Biden is, and that the two old warhorses have it within them to shape a consensus that straddles party lines and drains some of the toxicity from our political culture.
At the end of an apocalyptic campaign, Americans voted, it appears, to change their president but not much else. To the firebrands, that may be an excuse to keep fighting. For the next president and Congress, it's an invitation to make things better.
Plagiarists gotta stick together.
Unemployment economic malaise is the real strife we fear.
Jacoby is usually a reasonably solid guy. But he’s totally wrong on this.
If the Democrats succeed in stealing 2020 then we will never have another real election. This is for all the marbles and it is not a time to be “reasonable”.
Well, he is basically admitting that the country will only be free of destruction, if Biden wins. They know it was/is the Left causing all the destruction, but none of the ‘journalists, Media’ will admit the truth on that one.
The idiot. America didn’t vote for anything but a massive Trump landslide. Biden was not elected.
“Jacoby is usually a reasonably solid guy. But he’s totally wrong on this”
This is not the first neg. Trump write up from Townhall this week. Rinoitis it would appear. Screw them.
That is what the “Karens” wanted most, and a lot of other voters who lack any form of common sense.
Many voters simply want the noise to go away. They know Trump fought, they didn’t know why, they hated hearing the anger from both sides.
Now it will be quiet, peaceful, and calm as we slip into an economic and cultural abyss.
Never Trump gaslighting never stops. The election is just the latest event in the 4 year long coup. But China Mitch and Romney need GOP base votes votes in the GA runoff so we have to spin it as Trump losing. Trump didn’t lose anything. It is being stolen.
Flawed article. If Commie-Rats are allowed to massively steal this and other elections, just what twisted logic is being applied to make a person believe that the two Georgia Senates will not also be stolen?
Pelosi has already stated, on the record, in public, in front of cameras, the on the first day, HR1 will be passed. HR1 is designed to ensure no Republican (read that as no non-CommieRat) can ever be elected again. Oh sure, they will still allow a modest minority of GOP to be elected, but those will be the equivalent of Vichy. Think Romney and you are on target with who they will allow to be elected.
Next, the Commie-Rats have already told us that they will immediately manufacture 2 new states in order to pack the Senate, and then pack the Supreme Court.
With those steps completed, we no longer have a representative Republic. It is over. End of story.
First the Democrats encourage and support Burning, Looting, Murder, mayhem, rioting, and now we’re expected to ignore the “hotheads” who want law and order and fair elections?
America voted for Trump, by a lot! And he knows this.
The central premise is wrong and thus the rest of his screed can be dismissed. Americans did not vote. We were denied our franchise due to fraud.
Saying that we voted in order to have less strife is like saying a victim "bought" peace by getting mugged and having his wallet stolen as he lay bleeding on the sidewalk.
Absolutely.
Jeff Jacoby is a quisling to all true patriots. Ignore this article.
So Americans Voted to discipline their spoiled brat of. Congress that threw temper tantrum’s every day over the last 4 years by giving in ?
When the senate is stolen, mcconnel and the gop-e can go back to their corruption. Bidet won’t be President. He will be a figurehead for awhile until his resignation for ‘health’ reasons or amendment 25.
I am not sure if this deserves the barf alert, that’s why the question mark
If this doesn’t deserve a barf alert nothing does.
Sounds like typical quisling rhino can’t we all get along bullshiite.
Jeff Jacoby, huh?
What does Townhall to do with this? I swear, don’t you know the difference between an author, in this case Jeff Jacoby and a publisher which Townhall.com is.
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