The 2022 Mid-Term Elections: I Vote for Divided Government

The midterm elections are only one week away.

My dad claimed these would be the “most important elections in his lifetime,” and he said he would be up late watching the returns on TV. My father was heavily invested emotionally in the outcome of the vote – he very much desired that his party would win. He was not alone.

For my part, I thought this was not even a presidential election, but an off-year election. Why was this election so important? I care maybe ⅓ as much as my father, but still I have some thoughts.

Is this election ultra-critical in American history? I suspect it is just another manifestation of the super-emotional environment surrounding political events recently. “Save democracy from fascism!” “Stop the steal!” So much overheated rhetoric. So many raw emotions. So much bluster – at least from the political commentariat, and the politicians themselves – or many of them, at least.

I suspect it will be just another election.

As I see it, the problems are with the most politically passionate (hysterical?) – the populist Right and the progressive Left. Both exaggerate the problems America faces, in my opinion, and paint a picture of doom and gloom. I like how this guy portrayed the current political moment:

So I will vote against the extremes of Left and Right for any “responsible adult” available. Vote for the center! I want normie voters like me to vote for competent pragmatist politicians who will do their job without unnecessary fuss, and take the wind out of the sails of zealot social justice warriors on the left and crazy MAGA conspiracy nuts on the right.

So this is what I hope will happen: the Republicans take back the House, with a tie in the Senate.

This is what I want: divided government, split between Republicans and Democrats. 

The Democrats have the Presidency, and they have (barely) controlled Congress. So you have the seen the hubris of Democrats in the past two years who claimed that this 2020 election against Donald Trump (a world historical bozo, a once in a lifetime opportunity for Democrats) would herald the inclusion of Washington DC and Puerto Rico as states, an expansion of the Supreme Court, an end to the Electoral College, a Green “New Deal” and permanent growth of the social safety net, among other ambitious goals. The 2020 election would herald a permanent realignment in favor of the Democratic Party in national politics.

It didn’t happen. The Democrats wanted to operate as if they were a One Party state. That is what has happened in California where I live, which is in effect a state run almost exclusively by Democrats with no competition. The Democratic Party runs this place without much opposition, and the polity suffers from the lack of choice, in my opinion. It is One Party rule. California begins to resemble Venezuela or some other banana republic.

So I hope for a divided Congress in the midterm elections next week, with Republicans and Democrats having to share power at the national level.

I know this will frustrate many. They want “action.” Divided government means inaction, all too often. If the two parties in Congress cannot agree to compromise on legislation, or the President refuses to sign bills sent to his or her desk, then nothing will happen. Stalemate.

True enough.

But in a country which is almost evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, where neither of the two major parties can gain a permanent advantage over the other, that is what has to happen.

The Republicans and Democrats have to cooperate. The two major parties must compromise. This is how the American government works. That is by design.

So, my fellow Americans, let’s elect Democrats and Republicans to serve in Washington D.C. Then let’s insist that they work together for the common good, if at all possible. Act like grown adults, for a change. Do your job.

I noticed Republican Governor Ron DeSantis from Florida and Democrat Joe Biden as POTUS working together successfully after the recent Hurricane Ian in Southwest Florida last month. Check out the below photo –

– of the two walking together and trying to coordinate state and federal efforts to aid in recovering from the hurricane. Was that so hard?

So in a country where at present both major parties want to drive the other into the wilderness, is this a reasonable ask? Where political passion to confront is more intense than a rational ability to cooperate? To compromise?

We shall see.

So next Wednesday, the day after the midterm elections, I hope for Republicans in charge of at least one house of Congress. The Democrats can have the other and the White House.

Divided government.

Compromise.

Where nobody gets everything, and everyone gets something.

The way it is supposed to be.

The American way.

I am preaching, of course, the gospel of political centrism.

And the number of Americans around the center of the political spectrum is large.

But the angry fringe players in American politics – Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Cori Bush of the Left, or Marjorie Taylor Greene or Josh Hawley on the Right – seem to have the energy and momentum in an angry age of partisan emotional social media. A time of increasingly polarization and confrontation. Tears of bitter frustration and voices raised in rage.

Centrism can seem milquetoast and uninspiring, in such a context. Who wants to fight for the political center and get attacked by both left and right?

But centrism and compromise is what gets us through the day, in the real world in a free country where nobody gets to set the entire agenda, and you have to deal with those who disagree with you.

Radical centrism is the hill I will fight and die on, ironic as that might seem.

And so I vote for divided government next Tuesday.

I hope you join me in this, my fellow Americans.

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