Blue wave? More like a blue trickle

“Treason,” it has been famously said, “is a matter of dates”. The same, rather more obviously, is true of political surprises. At the beginning of the year, there was excited talk of “a blue wave” that would sweep the Democrats into power in the House of Representatives and, despite unfavourable political geography (Democrats were defending many more Senate seats than Republicans, including a good number in states won by Trump in 2016), quite possibly the Senate too. A new president’s party typically struggles in the first Midterm elections held after his victory. And when that president was polling so poorly as Donald Trump, well…

By October, those hopes had largely evaporated. The prevailing conventional wisdom was that the Republicans would hold the Senate and lose the House, but not dramatically so. As it was, the GOP has actually managed to add to its current 51-49 majority, an impressive achievement under the circumstances. To be sure, Republicans have lost the House by a little more than the most recent expectations, but by quite a bit less than the carnage of Democrats’ January dreams or, say, the humiliation inflicted on the Democrats in 2010, two years after Obama first took up residence in the White House.

Even a blue trickle will prove sufficient to bring down that non-existent wall. However, the President will, come 2020, be able to blame the failure to fortify the border on Democratic obstruction rather than Republican hesitation, one element in a wider perk of defeat that Trump, better at running against than for, will exploit to the full. A Democratic House will make for a tremendous target, especially if, as seems likely, the Democrats continue to swing to the left. Making Trump’s task easier still will be the fact that this iteration of the left is driven more by the politics of identity—terrain where Trump has considerable skills of his own— than by those of economic grievance.

Today, of course, marks both of the start of the 2020 election season and a surge in complaints that it is too early to start discussing 2020. All I will say for now is that the GOP will, absent “events”, be fighting the 2020 election as unambiguously the party of Trump. The President’s appeal to a changing base both saved yesterday (more or less) for the Republicans, but his spiel –and the baggage that comes with it—drove yet more moderate voters on the coasts and in the more affluent suburbs into the Democratic camp. This is a self-reinforcing process. As ‘purple’ parts of the country turn blue, they throw out the GOP lawmakers most likely to push back against the President, leaving the remainder even more closely bound to the man from Trump Tower. There is a great deal of division in this nation, and it is not going to narrow.

Nevertheless, part of Trump’s persona is as a deal-maker. As he contemplates a newly hostile House of Representatives, he may well try to see if he can win its agreement to the increased infrastructural spending he has always wanted, but without the tax increases that would infuriate the Congressional GOP. He might get that—even if, with government debt coming into ever more uncomfortable focus, another splurge would not delight the bond market—but it won’t buy him enough Democratic goodwill to head off the flurry of investigations that will be coming his way from congressional committees now under Democratic control. Trump’s reactions to siege by subpoena will not be edifying, and they won’t help either him or his party. And if those investigations come up with anything, well…

Meanwhile Special Counsel Mueller plods on, gathering evidence, securing pleas, and, doubtless, fully aware that the decision to impeach is ultimately political, not legal. With the Democrats in charge of the House (the institution that would initiate impeachment) the politics have just changed, and not to Trump’s advantage.

No one ever said his presidency would be dull.