INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
By Ramesh PonnuruDivided government has been the American norm over the last 50 years
It has been our condition 70 per cent of the time, and voters have ended every period of unified party control of both Congress and the
White House after at most four years.
In that respect, we just had a very normal election
principal consequences of these election outcomes are three
(They may be able to get slightly more conservative nominees through than they did before.) Democrats, however, will be able to use the
subpoena power to conduct oversight of the administration or, as Republicans will probably soon be calling it, harassment
And legislative gridlock will continue
Republicans quit trying to advance major legislation a year ago, and now both parties will use legislation mostly to score political points
rather than to actually get it enacted.
This last conclusion runs counter to some happy talk on election night about the possibility of
bipartisan cooperation on infrastructure
party would have to surrender or both would have to compromise on the policy questions.
Additionally, House Democrats would have to be
willing to help the president score a bipartisan achievement
And all this would have to take place in the midst of legal battles between the White House and the House
The split between the Senate and the House showed that our partisan divisions are deepening rather than being resolved
Differences between rural and urban voters, and between whites with and without college degrees, have continued to widen
The elections also showed some of the obstacles each party will face if it seeks to attain a governing majority in 2020.
The Republican
coalition is not a majority, and is not holding
Trump won support from some white working-class voters who had previously backed Obama, but Republicans have not yet absorbed those voters
if so it is a small one that is geographically distributed in a way that may put the Senate and the presidency out of reach
In the weeks before the election, Democrats boasted about their comeback in the Midwest
But that comeback was somewhat disappointing: They failed to win the governorships of swing states Ohio and Iowa.
The fact that a lot of
But they may have to make concessions, especially on cultural issues dear to many Democrats, to be more competitive on the outskirts of
What we can more realistically look forward to is two more years of social division, partisan rancor and governmental sclerosis -- all of
that, plus a presidential election that we can now consider underway
