I’m writing this before the results are in, or the votes are fully cast. I have no idea what the final margin in the Congressional elections will look like. I do know that it won’t be pretty for Democrats. And as a Democrat myself, I’m not too happy about that.
That said, I’ve been here before. Just 16 years ago I thought the world was going to end when the Democrats got spanked in the 1994 election. After a few months of handwringing Bill Clinton and the Democrats regained their footing and, well, the rest is history.
It is that experience – the sting of defeat and the response to it – that animates my Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief response to today’s election. Here is how it will and should play out for Democrats.
1. Denial. Democrats will point to this or that result and say, “See, it wasn’t that bad! Senator X survived! Congressman Y pulled it out!” I remember taking cold comfort from Ollie North’s defeat in 1994; as a Virginia resident at the time I actually cast my vote for a winning Democrat. But don’t be fooled: downplaying a major defeat is a form of denial.
2. Anger. This has already started and will get even more intense after the election. Democrats will get angry at Obama for failing to communicate better. They’ll get angry at Congressional leaders for failing to take a harder stand against Republican obstruction. And they’ll get angry at all the Red State yahoos with short memories who voted back into power the same jerks that led us into chaos between 2000 and 2006 (and 2008). But this will miss just how widespread that anger is. Or that the same amnesia can work in both directions.
3. Bargaining. This will likely be the shortest stage, as some Democrats hold out the prospect of keeping the most execrable Republicans from committee chairmanships. But this won’t work. Nobody is in a mood to bargain or compromise.
4. Depression. I actually worry about this stage more than anything else. Democrats can easily fall into the post-2002 – or even post-2004 funk of just giving up and letting the Republicans define the election as they wish. Democrats can be notoriously whiny and may become cynical and disengaged – even more than now. It will take an inspiring leader to re-energize Democrats again. It may end up being the same man who inspired Democrats before – Barack Obama – or it may be somebody new and unexpected.
5. Acceptance. Alas, this is where we will end up. But what does acceptance mean? In the past, “acceptance” of a major electoral defeat meant conceding a mandate for change, and it meant allowing the new majority to try out its agenda. But that is not the case anymore. Republicans proved that obstruction works masterfully; in fact, they learned it from Democrats who torpedoed the Social Security reform plan in 2005, thus beginning the GOP’s downfall. I suspect that for Democrats “acceptance” will mean re-discovering the same adversarial spirit that killed the Republicans in 2005, albeit with renewed focus and, perhaps, some new messaging.
I would imagine that all or most Democrats will be experiencing these five stages, much the same as Republicans experienced after 2006 and 2008. The world does not turn on a midterm election. The pendulum always swings back, albeit not with the same magnitude every time.
Substantively, the Democrats will be better positioned to fight without having to worry about the Blue Dogs. But will their message carry weight?
And what will the Republicans actually try to do? What’s remarkable about this election is that the GOP is not only unpopular, but it has no discernable agenda beyond extending the Bush tax cuts and repealing Obamacare. Yet, it won’t repeal Obamacare, and the Bush tax cuts will be addressed one way or another in the December lame duck session (hopefully by letting them ALL expire).
So what exactly will the GOP do? When they talk about less government, do they mean less oversight of Wall Street or the oil industry – two genuine villains of the last few years? Or do they mean some far-reaching tax cut? Or are they going to appeal to Tea Party extremists and seek a much more dramatic restructuring of government, “forcing down our throats” – to use their language – a host of grossly unpopular “reform” items?
And what about the debt? If there is one issue that animates the anti-Democratic electorate today it is concern about the debt. Will the GOP abide by the Debt Commission, even if it calls for tax increases and substantive cuts to Medicare?
There is a serious conversation to be had about all of these subjects. But we won’t be having it. Instead, we’ll approach some sort of stasis – gridlock – as the two sides dig in. Witch hunt investigations will go nowhere; without the Independent Prosecutor around anymore, there is simply no way to compel top government people to testify in Congress, as Henry Waxman discovered.
But maybe gridlock is what we, the American people, want and need in the end. Nearly every institution in America is in a state of dysfunction at this point. As unpopular as the Dems and Obama are, there is nobody who polls higher. The economy trudges along in an anemic state of minimal recovery. There is no appetite for foreign policy adventures. The various cultural distractions of the day are as compelling – and vacuous – as ever.
I predicted in early 2009 that the Democrats would get slaughtered if they failed to pass a health care law and/or the economy was still in trouble by November 2010. I firmly believe that the Dems would be in even WORSE shape if they had not bothered pushing ahead with comprehensive health care reform. They would have alienated conservatives by even broaching the topic, and they would have demoralized liberals with their failure.
But the economy still poses a real problem. Throughout American history the party in power has been blamed for economic woes – even when the electorate blames the other party for creating the crisis in the first place.
I’ll say again what I said 18 months ago: if the economy begins a robust and sustained recovery by late next year, Barack Obama will cruise to re-election and the Democrats will recoup most of their losses from this year. If the economy still stumbles along, we may be in for a far more chaotic election in 2012 – especially for Democrats.