The midterm elections are over, at long last. The Democrats managed to secure the House, which is a good thing, since if they hadn’t I am not sure we wouldn’t have had riots. I am no advocate of violence, but we live in a democracy, after all, and a democracy can only survive as long as the majority is allowed some say in the government. As things stood the day before the midterms, a marginal majority of Americans either identified with the Democratic party or were sympathetic to many of its aims.
This is particularly true in the areas of health care and gun control, and I would argue that a narrow majority also supports the Democratic attitude towards immigration. (Which is not to swing the gates wide open, as many irresponsibly allege, but instead to recognize that our economic and cultural growth depends on a steady influx of immigrants, and that basic immigration policy ought to acknowledge that fact.)
That we could have a president that was not elected by a majority (Trump received 48% of the vote in 2016), a Senate that does not represent the makeup of the majority (it is white, male, and religiously and economically conservative), a Supreme court with 5 of 9 members clearly identifying as Republican (and several declaring themselves Originalists, the legal equivalent of Fundamentalism), and a House of Representatives that is much more Republican than the nation the nation at large (House: 55% Republican in 2017; the general public averaging 30% Republican, 40% Democrat, and 30% independent in most polls), the situation as it was on election eve could not possibly hold.
No matter how conservative you are, or how liberal, if you truly believe in democratic government, you must believe that our elected officials ought to approximate the center of gravity of society at large. When the makeup of government is significantly different from public opinion, there is great social tension. If it goes on long enough, there must be either be civil war or dictatorship. Either the public will cast the government aside entirely, or the government will close out the right of the public to a say in politics. But as long as there is tension, government and society will constantly disrupt one another.
My views tend Democrat, but as a lifelong Southerner I have mostly lived under the political leadership of people more conservative as I am. For me, this is acceptable, as long as the conservatives in charge don’t act like liberals don’t matter, and as long as the conservative leaders govern with a sense of responsibility to everyone. The governor we have now in Mississippi, Phil Bryant, is far to the right of me, but for the most part he is milquetoast, so the situation is tolerable.
On a national level, politicians these days seem much less benign, and are more likely to run over the concerns of the opposition. (Think climate change, abortion, and immigration as examples of areas of contention where the party in power tends to ignore the concerns of the party out of power.) Balance is necessary. In fact, the more polarized national politics gets, the more crucial it will be that citizens feel each side is checked by the other. Otherwise, there is real danger of civil unrest.
Divided government means gridlock. Partisan carping. Lots of whining and grandstanding. It might mean threats of impeachment. I used to believe that gridlock was the worst kind of government, but at this point in history a majority that is perpetually under-represented and ignored is almost certainly worse. Democracy has never been perfect, and never will be, but its chief strength is that it is self-correcting. When government goes too far in one direction, the majority tends to pull it back. This results in uneven progress, with government direction lurching from one side to another, but in the end, it keeps us from going into the ditch. The greatest preserver of democracy is us, and the greatest threat is us unchecked. May we always check ourselves.