Joseph Sabino Mistick: Remembering old lessons post-election
Share this post:
Despite the instant analysis of the cable news talking heads, Tuesday’s off-year election was not so bad for Joe Biden. But once all the votes were counted, it was not without its lessons for both parties and the nation. And each lesson can be captured by a familiar cliche.
History repeats itself. This ancient proverb reminds us that what has happened before is likely to happen again, as we saw with the sound defeat of Democrat Terry McAuliffe for governor of Virginia. While the Virginia Constitution prevents governors from succeeding themselves, they can skip a term and run again. (McAuliffe was governor from 2014 to 2018.) But that has happened only once since the Civil War.
New Jersey is just barely a different story, where it appears that Democratic incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy won reelection by the skin of his teeth. New Jersey voters usually buck the White House in off-year elections, and it’s been four decades since a Democrat was reelected governor. Murphy’s pals will be calling him “Landslide Phil.”
Rome wasn’t built in a day. This medieval French proverb should remind those congressional Democrats on the left that they better post some legislative victories if they are to avoid future losses. Where Democrats failed, they might have done better if they had some national bragging rights. Passage of Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill would be a start.
By refusing to vote on infrastructure, so-called progressive Democrats have been holding the nation hostage and forgetting that major change comes from incremental victories. Social Security has been changed for the better many times since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Improving things incrementally is harder work, but demanding anything else is plain selfish.
Better half a loaf than no bread at all. This old English proverb has guided lawmakers for centuries, but it has not been popular lately between and within political parties. There is a curse that comes from one-party control of the executive branch and both chambers of the legislature. All your members think that they can finally get everything they want because you control it all.
Both parties get into trouble when ideology gets in the way of getting things done and when they try to right all the wrongs they see in one fell swoop. Overreaching by the Clinton administration led to Newt Gingrich and the Republican Revolution. Gingrich’s overreaching then gave Clinton a second term.
Donald Trump promised to keep factories open and make Mexico pay for border walls and defeat covid-19 after a few initial cases, and it was too much, leading to Biden’s victory. And now it is up to Biden. The infrastructure bill is his first test, and if it passes, then he can fight for the social safety net legislation.
Finally, in Virginia, Republican Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin, a very successful businessman and first-time politician, campaigned against “woke” culture and for the idea that parents should have an important say in their kids’ education. And he also skipped a virtual rally that Trump attended on election eve. It is a tactic that is likely to spread, and Democrats are forewarned.
And that leads us to a final cliche and our final lesson. As victorious Roman generals paraded through the streets of Rome to cheering crowds, slaves whispered into their ears, “All glory is fleeting.”