Midterms, now what?

[Qie Niangao]

We've had results from (most of) the midterm elections long enough to be considering implications, but I'm not sure what it all means yet.

• Sessions is out. Now that he's no longer serving as any barrier to Trump's attacks on Mueller, can we find any other use for his political corpse? Can he be compelled to testify at any House investigations, or is an impenetrable shield of Executive Privilege still intact? If he can't actually be useful, still, is there any way Democrats can make his remaining days any more miserable, as punishment for being an early Trump supporter?
• There were some prominent GOP losers (my favorites: Kris Kobach and Dana Rohrabacher), but some of the most Deplorable remain (Steve King, Devin Nunes, ... too many more). Can any of these -- especially the fallen ones -- be tied up with defending themselves from investigations and legal charges to prevent them from fulfilling whatever sinister new missions Trump will assign them?
• In general, the GOP is markedly "Trumpier" coming out of the election than it was going in. The downside of Democratic victories in middling red districts is that many of the defeated Republicans were the less rabid, and in the reddest districts we got flagrant mouth-foamers replacing retired never-Trumpers. So now there's no party-internal resistance at all to Trump.

That's especially worrisome in the Senate. Although they were never very effective (e.g., Kavanaugh confirmation scarcely delayed by Flake's formalities), now there's simply nothing to deter Trump from appointing full-on Nazi judges to every court. Thus falls the Judicial branch.

So basically the Gilead coup is complete. There's not much the House can do about it. Starve it (and the rest of government) of appropriations? Investigate it to death?

It's certainly better having the House than not, but I'm feeling we're actually more vulnerable to autocracy now than we were before the election.

 

[Free]

You already have your xmas tree up, don't you?

 

[Kara Spengler]

Umm ..... the house can not do anything to protect Mueller for another 2 months .....

Which is probably why the trigger was pulled, Rs can read calendars.

 

[Khamon]

Now, we keep the people in a voting frame of mind, and register even more. Politicians will flip from business moguls to public servants only when they know that most of their constituency voted, are watching, and will continue to vote. Pleasing the people they're representing has to be more important to them than pleasing each other. We haven't reached that point yet. We need more regular voters.

 

[Noodles]

Which is probably why the trigger was pulled, Rs can read calendars.

Yeah, the whole Kavenaugh mess showed that Rs love to keep their calendars.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

We've had results from (most of) the midterm elections long enough to be considering implications, but I'm not sure what it all means yet.

• Sessions is out. Now that he's no longer serving as any barrier to Trump's attacks on Mueller, can we find any other use for his political corpse? Can he be compelled to testify at any House investigations, or is an impenetrable shield of Executive Privilege still intact? If he can't actually be useful, still, is there any way Democrats can make his remaining days any more miserable, as punishment for being an early Trump supporter?
• There were some prominent GOP losers (my favorites: Kris Kobach and Dana Rohrabacher), but some of the most Deplorable remain (Steve King, Devin Nunes, ... too many more). Can any of these -- especially the fallen ones -- be tied up with defending themselves from investigations and legal charges to prevent them from fulfilling whatever sinister new missions Trump will assign them?
• In general, the GOP is markedly "Trumpier" coming out of the election than it was going in. The downside of Democratic victories in middling red districts is that many of the defeated Republicans were the less rabid, and in the reddest districts we got flagrant mouth-foamers replacing retired never-Trumpers. So now there's no party-internal resistance at all to Trump.

That's especially worrisome in the Senate. Although they were never very effective (e.g., Kavanaugh confirmation scarcely delayed by Flake's formalities), now there's simply nothing to deter Trump from appointing full-on Nazi judges to every court. Thus falls the Judicial branch.

So basically the Gilead coup is complete. There's not much the House can do about it. Starve it (and the rest of government) of appropriations? Investigate it to death?

It's certainly better having the House than not, but I'm feeling we're actually more vulnerable to autocracy now than we were before the election.

Well, there went my morning.

 

[danielravennest]

We've had results from (most of) the midterm elections long enough to be considering implications, but I'm not sure what it all means yet.

It's certainly better having the House than not, but I'm feeling we're actually more vulnerable to autocracy now than we were before the election.

Not really. We have a military who is not obeying Trump's illegal orders. Flipping the House puts a brake on any additional stupid laws. The Senate will have to compromise if they want to get anything done.

The answer to "now what", is continue to organize at the local level. This election wasn't a total victory, but it did show progress. The 3% loss in Texas and 1.5% loss in Georgia were still closer margins than ever before, in nominally red states. 1.5 *million* Floridians will get back the vote, because the state constitution was changed so felons get their voting rights back after their sentence is finished. That's 1.5 million people to get registered, more than enough to flip that state. And if Florida flips, you win the Electoral College (29 votes). The states where D's were chosen as governors need to un-gerrymander their electoral maps. There's lots to do.