Experts have done some counting, and are telling us we will be one, two or three senators short. Our progressive plans and dreams, whether they we expanding the Supreme Court or enacting Medicare for All, or even just simple tax reform, just ran into a big bucket of cold water, as it now appears increasingly unlikely that King McConnell has been deposed. To be clear, as much damage as Trump has done to our democracy I would argue that McConnell has been worse, if only because what he lacked in executive power he made up for with a relatively higher level of intelligence and an equal lack of morals and ethics. So now what?
Biden ran on the idea that he could work with everyone and be a president for everyone. Can that work as he moves from issue to issue? I doubt it. The blue wave simply didn’t materialize. Republicans might see the election of a repudiation of Trumpism, but they will not see it as a repudiation of conservative ideas, nor of the Republican Party itself. So their strategy will be to keep doing what they have been doing for the last six-plus years — be the (disloyal) opposition.
What I think Biden might be able to do is reach some sort of grand bargain with McConnell to get a few major issues taken care of right out of the gate. These might include: (a) a COVID stimulus/infrastructure bill; and (b) immigration reform. The tough part for me, as an outsider, is discerning what might be sufficient bait for McConnell to agree to a grand bargain. But McConnell knows that the country needs a stimulus bill, and he is already pushing for one. Delivering jobs, especially blue-collar infrastructure jobs, is always good politics, and is needed for the Republicans to finally deliver something to non-college whites. On immigration, hopefully the Republicans also noticed that Trump’s in-roads with Latinos in Florida was a key reason why this race even drug on for more than 24 hours. One way for the Republicans to expand their appeal with Latinos is to get the whole dreamer/caging children chapter of the current anti-immigration era behind them.
It is a moral imperative that the immigration log-jam be broken, and that infrastructure be addressed in the greenest way possible. It will be up to Biden to make sure that Democrats take an equal share of the credit. It will be up to all of us to continue to engage with our neighbors to win them into our tent.