State of the Nation in the Days After

And so it was that the people spoke on Tuesday, November 2, 2010.

The U.S. House went from hugely Democratic to hugely Republican.

The U.S. Senate remained in the hands of a much smaller Democratic majority.

The new Pennsylvania governor will be Republican, as will both houses of the state legislature.

Now, on to the Tea leaves!

Forthwith, some thoughts and observations on the days after:

In Washington:

Unrelenting, restless anxiety whipsaws the nation yet again

For the fifth time in just ten years, control of a Congressional chamber has switched hands. By contrast, between 1956 and 1979, neither changed hands once.

Truly enormous uncertainty, dread, confusion, indirection, and general anxiety dominate our times.  This produces massive rejection of whoever is in power. (2006 GOP majority thrown out of House and Senate; 2008 GOP thrown out of White House; 2010 Dem majority thrown out of House.) 2012? Stay tuned….

New Record For Fastest Broken Promises: 

What lessons will all this bring for the new GOP House majority? Well, the early tea leaf readings, leave much to be desired, at least for the hot-to-trot Tea Party voters.

GOP leaders already say that tax cuts do not need to be offset by spending cuts. In other words, kiss those balanced budget promises goodbye! 

Also, the Tea Party’s newly elected heroes responded to this treachery by rising up and firing their new leaders. Whoops! My mistake!

Actually, they responded by agreeing to keep the same old, same old GOP bosses.

Broken promises and status quo leadership! The Tea Party is off to quite a start.

In Harrisburg:

Change is the New Normal

As expected, Pennsylvanians changed the party in the governor’s residence after eight years. This has been going on without exception since the end of World War II. So strong is this tendency that it occurred even when governors could not seek re-election. In this regard, Tom Corbett’s victory is not surprising or a sign of massive rejection of Harrisburg.

In fact, the new GOP majority in the State House is also to be expected. Despite winning majorities in 2006 and 2008, Democrats almost immediately plunged into intra-caucus fights, leadership squabbles, and worse. Then it got ugly, as Bonusgate tore them apart.

With the legislature changing hands for the second time in four years, the GOP will have two years to bring some order amidst the chaos. In two years, my guess is that angry Democratic voters will vote with much greater numbers and intensity, primarily for the national elections. Nonetheless, the trickle-down effect should help Dems to gain back at least some state house seats, possibly humbling or erasing the GOP’s 2010-won control. 

What the elections mean for the next few years

In Washington

Tea Partiers voted GOP, primarily to repeal health care reform. Not to try. Not to give a good ol’ effort and fall short. No. The GOPers promised, explicitly, that they will repeal health care. This will sorely test the GOP’s ability to keep Tea Partiers fired up for the 2012 elections, as follows:

With the Senate remaining in Dem hands, repeal efforts will probably never make it to a vote in that chamber. If they do, there will not be close to 60 votes to shut off debate and allow a repeal to pass. Even if that highly unlikely event occurres, 67 votes would be needed to override a certain veto by President Obama. Don’t hold your tea breath!

Similarly, the Tea Party actually cost the GOP its chance to take the senate by running so many candidates who scared voters by calling for privatization of Social Security (this also will go nowhere), repealing minimum wage, and possibly reversing all American progress since before the Civil War.

Either the GOP further disappoints Tea Partiers by dropping this stuff, or it loses the middle and therefore the next elections by promoting this nonsense. 

In Harrisburg

The results in Harrisburg will be more along the usual lines. Corporations will have a field day for at least the next 2 years. Pennsylvania will continue as the only state in the Union not to tax natural gas extraction.

Public schools that saw major funding increases during the Governor Ed Rendell years can now count on being lucky to hold onto the funding they currently have.  The long unemployed will soon be out of luck, as “we can’t afford to help them.” But we apparently will be able to afford more for corporations and business generally.

Less clear is whether the reform agenda of Corbett really will stretch to reducing the size of the legislature, term limits, etc. An all-GOP majority probably won’t be so keen on risking their power and privileges now. 

Will the Facts Ever Matter Again?

Most dispiriting for all Americans desiring to see somebody, somehow, bring reason and compromise to our governance:

The new congressional majority is built on hard core supporters, the vast majority of whom believe the President is not a citizen, health care purchased through the private sector is socialism, death panels await the chance to kill through health care reform, global warming does not exist, and that we can prevent another economic meltdown by returning to exactly the same deregulation and anything-goes Wall Street mentality that got us into this mess to begin with.

So there you have it. The State of the Nation, in the days after.

Enjoy!