I saw an opinion piece recently talking about the winners on Election Day: Decency, diversity, blah, blah, blah.
That’s doing things the easy way.
In this space, we do things the hard way.
Who were the biggest losers on Election Day?
Let’s start with John Fetterman, a Democratic senator who often supports Republican policies. If, as had been widely expected, the Democrats had won a narrow majority in the Senate — say, 51 or 52 seats — Fetterman would have been empowered. Like Joe Manchin five years ago, Fetterman’s one vote would have decided whether Democrats could pass bills. Fetterman would have had an awful lot of power.
Fetterman lost on Tuesday night.
With a multiseat majority, the Democrats can afford to lose Fetterman’s vote and still pass bills. In Congress, I like it when individual senators don’t have too much power. It’s better both for the senator’s massive ego and for America.
Who else lost on Election Day?
The far left of the Democratic Party.
My thinking here is the same as with Fetterman: With a slim majority, Democrats would need the votes of the far left fringe to pass any bills. With more seats in Democratic control, the centrists can pass laws without the support of a far left senator or two. That’s good; I’m glad it happened.
Other losers on Election Day?
Putin, thank God.
American can once again take Ukraine’s side in the war, resist Putin’s incursions on NATO, and impose sanctions as necessary. Presidents of course still have a lot of unilateral power in foreign affairs, but with large Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, I’m hopeful that even lickspittle Republicans will remember that in the past they believed in a strong defense against Russia.
(It’s remarkable how people’s opinions change with the political winds. Within the next 10 years, I bet that the Southern Baptist Convention will again be telling me — as it did in the late 1990s, but did not in 2016 — that a president’s character matters. Never forget the hypocrisy of the Southern Baptist Convention.)
Is it also possible that sycophantic Republicans will rediscover that they believe in controlling the deficit, and free trade, and respect for the rule of law? As I’ve said before, I personally don’t care; Republican silence for the past 10 years has cost the party my vote in perpetuity. I just hope I have some good independents to vote for in the future, since I’m sure that the Democrats will soon disappoint me. (Don’t get me started on the financial condition of my home state of Illinois, where Democrats have controlled the state legislature for a couple of decades.)
Where was I?
Oh! Losers on Election Day.
Benjamin Netanyahu. A close relationship with Donald Trump was once an asset in Israel. Not so much any more, Bibi.
How about Iran?
Iran opposed Trump. Trump’s party lost. So Iran’s a winner, I guess.
But Trump knows that Congressional support for the war with Iran will go over a cliff in January, when the new Congress is sworn in. If Trump wants to make any military moves in Iran, he’s got two months to act. (I write these columns a couple of days before you read them. If the bombs are already falling in Iran when you are reading these words, that’s an issue of timing.)
Why would Trump bomb Iran between now and January? Does Trump really think he can trigger regime change in Iran with another few bombing runs? Does he think that a few more bombs will set back Iran’s nuclear program substantially further than where it is now? Does he think that restarting the war with Iran will help his domestic popularity?
I’m not sure that dropping more bombs on Iran will make any difference at this point, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Trump does it anyway. He’s promised to bomb, and he wants to blame the loss in Iran on Democrats (who, he’ll say, foolishly stopped his new bombing campaign just days before it would have succeeded).
If I had to predict, I’d say a few bombs will fall in November or December, followed by some kind of weird (and unhappy) peace next year. (The Democrats insist we should stop the war in Iran. But they’re far less loquacious when asked for details about what we should do. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz. Iran may well start developing nukes. Do we just stop bombing? Do we negotiate something? What terms should we try to negotiate, and with what leverage? That’s a much harder issue than the campaign ads, which simply announce that we should, “Stop the war and reduce gas prices!”)
One last loser on Election Night: The Republican Party. The Republicans didn’t lose only because they lost the elections; Republicans lost because it’s now obvious that Trump never gave a damn about the Republican Party to begin with. If Trump had been on the ballot on Tuesday, he couldn’t possibly have lost; just ask him. The election would have been rigged! Trump would be screaming, “Election fraud!” and exhorting his followers to storm state and federal capitol buildings.
But Trump wasn’t on the ballot. Trump didn’t lose; other Republicans did. And Trump doesn’t give a damn about other Republicans.
Republicans sold their souls to Trump and he, in the end, deserted them.
Knock me over with a feather.
Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.
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