Time for action will be fleeting

The opportunity to do big things at the federal level doesn’t come around very often. You need all the pieces to fall into place, and then move quickly before the inevitable backlash. Democrats will have to make sure that if their chance arrives next year they make the most of it.

For Jim Himes, should he win another term, it could be a chance to go back to where he started when he first took office. Though much, including the economic situation, is familiar, “There’s a huge difference between January 2009 and January 2021,” the Fourth District congressman, who is seeking reelection Nov. 3, said in a recent interview.

The state of the nation in 2009 can look positively gauzy in retrospect as the nation inaugurated its first Black president who made healing wounds and working together his rhetorical focus. But the situation on the ground was dire, with the financial system in ruins and a terrifying recession just getting started. Like today, there was a lot to do.

Alot got done, too — a stimulus, Obamacare, reform of the financial sector — but Democrats would spend much of the next decade ruing missed opportunities. It was only one election cycle before Republicans took back the House of Representatives, effectively killing the chance to do anything more than running the government. Even that was often too much to ask, as the later Obama years were characterized by shutdowns and brinkmanship over the basics of keeping Washington open.

But the lesson was that the time to act is short. No matter how sweeping a victory might be, there will always be a backlash. Partisans on one side who are out-motivated and out-organized for one election cycle can quickly turn things around. The time any leader has to enact major legislation is fleeting.

Four years ago, we saw what happened when Republicans gained total control in Washington. It’s true they didn’t reach their longstanding goal of abolishing Obamacare, but they did achieve what could rightly be called their true objectives — passing tax cuts aimed primarily at the rich while installing a cadre of arch-conservative judges to lifetime appointments. There wasn’t much in the way of major legislation, but that has never been their thing, anyway.

The question, then, is what lessons Democrats can take from 12 years ago to apply to the coming year, should matters break in their direction.

Himes said there’s a lot to be learned.

“When Barack Obama was inaugurated, you had a ... historically consequential, symbolically unique person,” he said. “That was a good moment ... but it was also a moment of naivete. President Obama himself said we were in a post-partisan moment. Well, we really weren’t.”

Republicans certainly didn’t believe there was anything post-partisan about it, and set about denying Obama the very unity he sought to represent. If every action he took appeared partisan, that put the lie to Obama’s claims about rising above it all. It also had the effect of opposing some much-needed help in a time of great need, but, electorally speaking, it paid off in 2010.

Apotential Biden presidency be different, Himes said. “In some ways, Joe Biden is in the opposite position. There is nothing postpartisan about Joe Biden,” he said.

In a best-case scenario, that could mean a White House that acts quickly and decisively instead of one that spends months negotiating with itself in the hopes of bipartisan agreements that were never going to happen anyway. It could mean real change gets done in the short time that will be allotted.

Alot has to happen in the meantime. Himes has to win reelection, though most people who do this sort of thing for a living think there’s not much drama in any of the Connecticut congressional races. A tougher haul will be a Democratic president, which no matter what the polls show no one will feel comfortable about until around noon on Inauguration Day.

Then they need to switch control of the Senate, which means winning in states such as Colorado and Maine. But with close, winnable races in usually reliably red states such as South Carolina and Kansas, Democrats are at least feeling good about their chances.

Given how rarely these chances come about, they will need to work hard to make the most of them.