By Carl Weinschenk“The Candidate” is a very good political movie released way back in 1972. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (which was written by Jeremy Larner). Robert Redford plays an outsider who beats all the odds to win a Senate race in southern California. His stunned reaction is to ask his campaign manager (played by the great Peter Boyle), “Marvin, what do we do now?”
Here is the moment, which is the end of the film:
It’s not wise to assume what will happen in the future. We don’t know what will happen during election weeks (“election day” is an anachronism and “election month” is inaccurate because most of the action is in October). But it makes sense to think about the future, at least in high level terms. It may just be that a a week from now more than a few Democrats will be asking themselves the same question Redford asked Boyle.
Let’s briefly imagine that January 2027 dawns with the Democrats controlling the House and the Senate. The elected representatives – freshmen and re-elects – will instantly face a number of five-alarm fires.
That’s pretty much the norm. What’s not is the president with whom Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and their lieutenants will have to deal. In short, the Democrats will face a vital of series of strategic and tactical decisions on how to run the country alongside a man who will be very angry, clearly addled and very likely is a criminal. He also will have nothing left to loose from a political perspective.
The Democrats have three choices:
- Go hard after Trump and his co-conspirators because he’s unpopular and doing so strengthens the hand of eventual Democratic nominee for president
- Go hard after Trump and his co-conspirators to begin the process of healing the nation by passing laws and regulations that make a replay of his abominable behavior by a future president less likely
- Come to a tacit understanding with Trump that if he cuts the crazy the Democrats will go a bit easier on him once he is a private citizen again
The path forward will be extremely tricky for the Democrats. They have spent years pointing out Trump’s governing, legal and ethical failures. They know that he doesn’t play by the rules. During the first half of his second term, however, the Democrats have been in the wilderness (an evocative phrase for having control of no arm of the government). Having no power is not fun. But it has one silver line: There is much less responsibility. If the Democrats win the midterms, the party will have power – and the clock will start ticking on them using it.
What happens if the Democrats win Congress?
This will be tricky. The focus after the midterms will gradually shift to the 2028 presidential race. Handling of what likely will become known as “the Trump question” must be nuanced. Too much focus on Trump will lead to complaints that the now-empowered Democrats are not spending enough time addressing the issues impacting their lives. Too little focus on Trump will lead to complaints that they are letting him off the hook and that the ruling class always protects its members, even the wayward ones. And this isn’t Goldilocks (or class M planet) situation: There won’t be a “just right” approach.
Keep in mind that the Democratic coalition is extremely broad because of dysfunction of the GOP. It’s hard to get broader than the distance between senators John Fetterman and Bernie Sanders, for instance. This suggests that coming to a consensus on how to deal with Trump will be difficult. Factor Trump’s superpower — never being held to account for his actions — and there is an atmosphere that could go south very quickly.
The question is how long the electorate will give the Democrats to find their footing and show progress in fixing the huge problems inherited and neglected and those he caused. American politics is characterized by candidates over-promising and voters getting frustrated. The fact that the potholes are clearly visible doesn’t mean that they will be easy to avoid.
Image: The Crossroads in Clarksville, Mississippi is where Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for mastery of the blues. It is at the intersection of U.S. Routes 61 and 49. Photo by Joe Mazzola under Creative Commons license.