The question that matters most after the midterms

Democrats performed much better than expected in the midterm elections last week. I should concede at the outset that I was among those who expected (and hoped, for reasons I’ll come to) that they’d be more firmly rebuked. I also acknowledge that this surprise raises a very good question: How did pollsters, pundits and even most Democrats get the forecast so wrong?

Interesting as this is, it isn’t the most important question. What matters most is whether last week’s results will help the country mend its broken politics. It’s possible — but only if Democrats and Republicans alike decide to try. That makes it a long shot.

Certainly the results are a setback for Donald Trump, which is a good start. Many of the candidates he backed — including Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Don Bolduc in New Hampshire and Tudor Dixon in Michigan — did badly. And Trump’s strongest rival within the party, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a target of the former president’s threats and insults, won reelection by a landslide.

The upshot is that Republicans might finally realize that Trump is the Democratic Party’s most valuable asset. Some might even find the courage to distance themselves.

Yet Trump will take a lot of dislodging. Whatever happens, he can expect to retain significant support among Republican voters, so he could wreck the party’s chances in the next election if he ran as an independent. The idea that he would step aside to unite the party behind a different candidate and deny Democrats their win seems absurd: He has no such party loyalty or larger political purpose, and at any rate his vanity precludes it. Only if he comes to believe he’d face humiliation might he step away — perhaps endorsing a Democrat on the way out.

Could that be what the midterms are suggesting? That the Democrats, more popular than the polls led people to think, are now securely on course for victory in 2024? Unfortunately, no. The red wave didn’t happen — but that doesn’t solve the underlying problem.

Despite Trump and his weak candidates, despite the right’s extremists and election deniers, this is still a closely divided country. (And by the time the vote-counting is over, it might be more deeply divided.) The path to normal, semi-functioning politics is unlikely to come by means of commanding Democratic victories or a thorough repudiation of Trump and Trumpism, neither of which is plausible under current conditions.

In fact, the Democrats’ overperformance in the midterms may make matters worse. A red wave might have forced the party to reexamine its platform and priorities and ask how it could better appeal to uncommitted voters. These results absolve them of that need. They can continue to think — wrongly, in my view — that their platform and priorities are fine.

In an alternate universe, of course, both Democrats and Republicans would read the results as an appeal for more orderly and effective politics. They would recognize that in a closely divided country which separates government powers, this requires compromise and accommodation. And that, in turn, would require them to see the other as an opponent, not a mortal enemy. Republicans would have to dump Trump and Trumpism. Democrats would have to listen more attentively and empathetically to voters who disagree with them.

For steps in this direction to be imaginable, Republicans would have to temper their zeal for investigations (assuming they end up controlling the House) and the president would have to stake out areas of possible agreement. Sadly, regarding the latter, the incentives are misaligned. To repeat, Trump and Trumpism are helping, not hurting, the Democrats. It might serve the public interest to engage Republicans in areas of policy where agreement is possible, hence treating them like responsible and productive politicians — but even supposing Republicans were willing to go along, this wouldn’t serve the Democrats’ tactical interests.

The real question is whether President Joe Biden can rise above such political calculations. To date, he hasn’t been willing, and in his postelection comments on Wednesday he offered little encouragement. To his credit, he wasn’t unduly triumphal about his party’s performance, and he said he’d invite Republican leaders to discuss working together. But he was specific in ruling out compromise on several issues (including abortion, Medicare and Social Security) while mentioning none where it might be possible. Asked what he would do differently given that three-quarters of Americans think the country is moving in the wrong direction, he said: “Nothing.”

That won’t be enough.