The recent midterm elections have provided much food for thought for both major political parties, as both were largely unsuccessful in accomplishing their goals for this election cycle. All hopes of a “blue wave” for Democrats were drowned out by an exceptionally average House seat pickup against an unpopular president. One that especially looks meager in comparison to the 63 House seats and six Senate seats Republicans picked up in 2010 during Obama’s first term. That was a real wave. Not to mention Republicans held the Senate, allowing President Trump to be able to continue confirming conservative judges and changing the ideological makeup of the courts. However, claiming that this election was a complete loss for Democrats would be untrue, as they did successfully win back the House and had several victories at the state level. These victories will have a large impact as they come in time for the 2020 census and the redistricting that will follow.
There are several key takeaways that both parties should take, but probably won’t, as a result of this election. For Republicans, it should be that if they can’t start better appealing to minority groups and suburbanites, they are not only going to be in trouble in 2020, but for many years to come. For Democrats, it should be that the success of this election had very little to do with policy or the Democratic platform, but rather with how unpopular Trump is. The Democratic platform has become gradually more radicalized over the last couple of years, and borderline socialist candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Beto O’Rourke and Andrew Gillum are largely polarizing figures that won’t be able to connect with most Americans in the middle. If Democrats can find a much more moderate voice within their party, especially on the topic of immigration, they will have a lot more success in appealing to independents and maybe see that blue wave in 2020.
My personal takeaways on the other hand are simple; the conversation around the midterms is not what it should be. People should be talking about how we just had the highest midterm turnout in over 104 years, but that that turnout was still under 50 percent. Even in an election with an extremely polarizing president and a lot at stake, less than half of the eligible American electorate went out to vote, and this was a good year. Not only that, but if it wasn’t for Romney running in Utah, not a single politician would have talked about what should have been the most important topic in this midterm election: the national debt. According to the Wall Street Journal, by 2023 the interest payments, not even payments on the debt itself, will reach $700 billon a year. This is more than we, the largest military in the world, spend on defense. It frankly blows my mind how irresponsible it is for certain Democrats to propose universal health care, which would cost the government over 32.6 trillion dollars, or free college tuition for all, which would cost several trillion as well. Our country could be facing economic disaster in the near future because of our politicians carelessly spending more money than we have on both sides of the aisle.
In all, the American people, both political parties and the government need to think towards the future and assess what is important and how best to proceed. If they can’t, disaster is certainly looming on the horizon.
Aidan Enright a Contributing Writer for the Voice, can be reached for comment at AEnright21@wooster.edu.