Democracy is returning to a divided America

Result of midterm elections provides a crucial check on Donald Trump’s power, Andrew Cohen writes.

Call it a wave, tidal or rogue. Call it a riptide, an undertow or a cross current. Deny it, defy it or dismiss it, there is a simple truth to the outcome of Tuesday’s U.S. midterm election: It changes everything in Washington. The Democrats control the House of Representatives, pure and simple. They will exercise their constitutional powers, pursue their political impulses and exploit every theatrical opportunity. After two years with a free hand in Congress, Donald Trump now faces a fierce, full-throated opposition. The resistance has moved inside. For the next two years, the Democrats will demand, petition, review and investigate. In the greatest use of their new power, they may even vote to impeach. They will largely determine the survival and the success of this incendiary presidency. With one house of Congress, the Democrats are the face and voice of the opposition in America that stirred the day Trump was inaugurated. They have watched his vulgarity, vanity and ignorance in horror, and they have been waiting for the opportunity to stop him. Now they can — up to a point. Their victory is what the founders intended, theoretically, in making each member of the House of Representatives seek election (unlike the president or senators) every two years. They wanted the people’s representatives to respond to the popular will. In 2018, they have. Winning more than two dozen seats in a House largely designed by Republicans, in a robust economy, against a shrill chorus of condemnation and falsehood from the commander-in-chief, is extraordinary. No, the Democrats did not win a historic number of seats on Tuesday; in other midterm elections, the opposition has done better. Their majority is not huge, but it is enough. How far will the Democrats go? Well, just watch them. They will examine members of cabinet. They will demand Trump’s tax returns, which will explain his business dealings. Armed with subpoena power, they will investigate Trump’s ties to Saudi Arabia and Russia. Will they impeach him? That will depend on the report, expected soon, of Special Council Investigation head Robert Mueller. They will be in no rush, preferring to keep Trump twisting in the wind into 2020, to gain maximum political advantage and to inflict maximum personal agony. Can Trump work with the Democrats? It is possible, but unlikely. Trump has no philosophy other than self-interest. He may — just may — try to find common ground on health-care reform, cheaper prescription drugs and infrastructure. But don’t expect much. The Democratic base will be reluctant to give Trump any legislative victory that he can spin. The goal is to destroy him. Moreover, even if he makes a deal with Democrats in the House, he makes things harder for himself with a Republican Senate. The incoming class of Republicans are more militant than their predecessors. The next two years in Washington will be chaotic, loud and unproductive. Unless Trump can build consensus, he will get nothing passed. He can continue to have the power to make rules, to make speeches, to make war and to remake the judiciary, which is no small thing. But without the House he cannot make laws — which means that legislatively his presidency is over. You will hear little of that from the Republicans today. The sycophants and the collaborators fawn over his appeal among their co-religionists. But as women, minorities and immigrants abandon their Grand Old Party — leaving it in a white, male, rural America — the demographic world is shifting beneath them. The scene will not be pretty or nice. The divisions in the country will deepen and harden. But Donald Trump’s power is no longer absolute. Democracy is returning to America.