As we approach the darkest time of the year, we have been gifted a little ray of light. I believe the 2018 midterms signaled the beginning of the end of the long Arctic night of right-wing politics that have controlled the fate of this country since 1980 when the “Reagan Revolution” plunged America into a darkness we are only now emerging from.
And as in the Arctic, it will be a while yet before the sun fully bursts above the horizon, but the midnight sun of progressivism is upon us.
The Democrats won back the House, true, but our losses on Tuesday were as important as our wins. And this is good news. Andrew Gillum and Beto O’Rourke ran pedal-to-the-metal progressive campaigns, and both lost by a fraction in two powerful red states that are turning purple demographically but are still stridently right-wing. (In Georgia, progressive Democrat Stacey Abrams lost — if she has — only after her Republican opponent literally purged voter rolls of tens of thousands of voters.)
Both O’Rourke and Gillum lost not just because they ran unrepentantly progressive campaigns that a few years ago would’ve been considered suicidal; they lost because they did not retreat, did not tack right nor do what polls might’ve told them to. They planted the flag of progressive politics, not as an election tactic, but because they are genuinely progressive politicians. And that they damn near won is wonderful news — and hopefully a harbinger of things to come.
It reminds me of the great turning point in the Civil War: For the first few years, every time a Union general lost a battle (which was almost all of them), they retreated to Washington, D.C. to lick their wounds and rethink everything, much like the Democrats are doing now. When Ulysses S. Grant took command, however, he lost, too. Only his response to losing was to marshal his troops and go right back at the enemy — no whimpering, no recalibrating. This is where we are, and this is what we must do.
So beware the naysaying and breast-beating. And beware headlines like “Democrats won the House, Trump won the election.” Don’t buy it! The midterms were the next evolutionary phase of this country after Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid. Anyone expecting the progressive Democrats to win the first time out is not seeing the long-term politics at the heart of this moment; they’re only seeing the short-term desire to avenge themselves on Trump.
The Democrat party is on the brink of gaining what it has lacked for a generation: a new and vibrant (and unapologetically progressive) narrative to tell the American people about another way to govern ourselves. A narrative about what to vote FOR, rather than against. (And voting against Trump is what lost us the election in 2016. How else to explain the millions of Democrats who voted to re-elect Obama, but stayed home when asked to vote merely against Trump?)
We suffered losses on Tuesday, but these progressives will not crawl away to lick their wounds and triangulate some new strategy. They will be back with the same unapologetic, progressive platform and policies that will lead us to victory. This is the great gift of Sanders, and O’Rourke, and Gillum, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (the new democratic socialist in Congress). They are not career politicians seeking a winning strategy. They are genuine progressives who, like Apollo in his chariot, will drag the sun up and end our long darkness.
There was also good news at the state level. Democrats picked up seven governorships, including in Kansas and Wisconsin, which had been petri dishes for GOP bacteria; and flipped six state legislative chambers to blue. This is great news after 10 years of straight losses. And lest we forget, left or right, there are a record number of women in the House.
The best news is that the Dems took back the House. And the choice now is between governing or exacting revenge. The Dems will control key House committees — should they put forth a platform to govern this nation until 2020, and beyond? Or should their energy and efforts go towards getting rid of, or at least diminishing, the presidency of Donald Trump?
Revenge, of course, is tempting. The Dems can use their leadership positions to subpoena all the witnesses and records that their GOP colleagues did not call. And wouldn’t we enjoy the show of watching them put Trump’s feet to the fire?
What I hope they do is leave the appropriate committees to do their investigative work.
The mission is to govern, to create the narrative that will finally replace the GOP’s story of supply-side economics that has smothered this country for a generation.
Then we’ll be ready for 2020. Because the final lesson of the razor thin margins of 2018 is that Trump will be a formidable candidate to beat in two years. Maybe that’s why he’s so orange — he’s the Sun Eater.
Joe Gannon, author and teacher, lives in Northampton. He can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.