Amidst all the punditry and Monday-morning quarterbacking that is going on about the "Republican Wave of Victory" last night, I want to try and offer reasons why I believe this is not that big of a deal and that there is still a lot of room for hope among the seemingly depressing news for liberals and progressives, and for our country as a whole:
1)First and foremost, Republicans, after a furious spending blitz of about $75 million by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, were still only able to gain a majority in the House of Representatives without being able to take the Senate. You certainly don't have a mandate from the people when you poured millions into a campaign only to win one house of Congress with razor edge margins of victory in many of those wins. Having gained control of only one house means that any Republican legislation will have to run the guantlet of two buffers, the Senate and the President's pen. This means that it is unlikely that Republicans will be able to get through any of the legislation on which they based their campaign promises, like the rollback of the Healthcare law. At the most, they will only be able to be a thorn in the side of Democrats for the next two years, something that won't be that drastically different than the last two years.
2)Most of the major Tea Party candidates lost. Christine O'Donnell took a drubbing by Coons in Delaware. Sharron Angle was defeated in a five-point margin by Harry Reid in Nevada. And it's looking like Joe Miller is on track to be soundly defeated by the write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski, who represents a more mainstream Republicanism. What all of this portends is that America wants nothing to do with this fringe element of conservatism. The Tea Party--while positioning itself as an anti-government/libertarian party--ultimately morphed into a party of the most extreme elements of Christian, right-wing conservatism, a form of conservatism that does not appeal to the majority of Americans or even the majority of Republicans. The primary exception to this trend last night was Rand Paul. I believe this was due more to the popularity of his father, Ron Paul, who more accurately represents what the Tea Party claimed to be fighting for before they lurched off into the Christian right insanity. These particular elections provide at least some beacon of hope that America recognizes that this ideology has nothing to offer but taking America backwards.
3)The final piece of positive data to take away from this election is what I believe is the most devastating for the Republican party as a whole, and was seized upon by Newsweek almost immediately. Republican wins last night were due largely to the turnout of older voters over 65. In fact, something that social scientists have been noting for several years now, the Republican party is now dominated by older, rural, mostly white, voters. While this demographic might have been a boon for Republicans 50, 40, or even 30 years ago, it is increasingly turning them into a minority party. Every demographic trend shows that our country is becoming less white and more urbanized. America looks less and less like the Republican party as each day goes by and there is nothing at all to indicate this trend is going to reverse. The Latino population in this country will triple by 2050, but it won't take that long for the effect of Latino voters to be felt on the electorate, an effect that will begin to have a major impact within 10-15 years. When one looks at this statistic, it isn't hard to see why Republicans are so zealous to reduce Hispanic immigration. Add to that the fact that the Republicans are on the wrong side of every important social issue of our day. LGBT equality is gaining acceptance at historic rates with over half of all Americans now accepting gay and lesbian relationships as morally acceptable and with the continued trend toward LGBT acceptance showing no evidence of declining, yet, Republicans still consistently oppose legislation aimed at providing more equality to gay and lesbian couples. Healthcare reform is also an important issue for all Americans, and while polls show that a majority of Americans are not satisfied with the Healthcare Law as it was passed by the Obama administration, all data points to the fact that the majority oppose it because it did not go far enough. Polls still consistently show that the majority of Americans favor a public option in spite of the repeated attempts by Republicans to hide that fact, yet, Republicans want to take us back to the status quo of 122 Americans dying daily because they can't get access to healthcare. All of this points toward the fact that the Republican party, unless they do a tremendous, miraculous makeover, are destined to go the way of the Whigs.
So, basically, things last night were not really all that terrible. Liberals and progressives should take heart. Republicans did not walk away with an overwhelming victory that will allow them to do a lot of damage in the next few years, and, ultimately, they only have a few more grand slams like last night left before they fade off the scene. Time is not on their side.