2018 Nov 11 - US Election Aftermath
This weekend marked 100 years since the end of the 1st world war and therefore it's also the end of 4 years of seeing the Sunday papers lazily padding out their pages with archive articles. Don’t worry though folks, it’s just one year until we start seeing 80 year commemorative articles about WW2. It's interesting, don't get me wrong, but it's not new. I guess a lifestyle and opinion journal calling itself a newspaper is a legacy thing, like the Carphone Warehouse, or SNP member swearing allegiance to the “United” Kingdom with the sort of honesty that I’d expect from a dodgy car mechanic or someone who says they were only visiting a strip club for the free buffet.
So what has happened in the news? Well last week I said that not a lot would happen in the US election and in many respects I was correct. Sure the Democrats took control of congress, but not by anywhere close to the margins that people were talking about. They also failed to take the senate and the Republican Party actually gained a seat in Indiana. There was no blue wave, Ted Cruz kept his seat and don’t forget that with Brett Kavanaugh installed and another 2 years of potential changes by the senate, the Supreme Court will likely be conservative leaning for the next 20 years or so.
Holding on to all parts of the US government is like trying to capture a shadow and the US system is purposefully designed to prevent legislation that isn’t agreed upon at all 4 stages. So be prepared for a year of nothing followed by a year of people running for president in 2020, something that actually sounds more tedious than the aforementioned ‘year of nothing’. Sure the house could go down the road of impeachment all it wants but they don’t have the senate so it’s a bit like 2 blokes in a pub discussing what car they’d buy if they won the lottery. In my mind the interesting thing to come out of the election, asides from local ballots like Michigan legalising marijuana, is that the new congressmen don’t actually take those seats until January so we might see the incumbents happily passing all sorts of crazy laws in the next month or two, safe in the knowledge that they won’t face any electoral consequences. Sort of like when David Cameron delivered the Brexit vote before heading of to the countryside to write a book and drink wine rather than doing any real work.
So what has happened in the news? Well last week I said that not a lot would happen in the US election and in many respects I was correct. Sure the Democrats took control of congress, but not by anywhere close to the margins that people were talking about. They also failed to take the senate and the Republican Party actually gained a seat in Indiana. There was no blue wave, Ted Cruz kept his seat and don’t forget that with Brett Kavanaugh installed and another 2 years of potential changes by the senate, the Supreme Court will likely be conservative leaning for the next 20 years or so.
Holding on to all parts of the US government is like trying to capture a shadow and the US system is purposefully designed to prevent legislation that isn’t agreed upon at all 4 stages. So be prepared for a year of nothing followed by a year of people running for president in 2020, something that actually sounds more tedious than the aforementioned ‘year of nothing’. Sure the house could go down the road of impeachment all it wants but they don’t have the senate so it’s a bit like 2 blokes in a pub discussing what car they’d buy if they won the lottery. In my mind the interesting thing to come out of the election, asides from local ballots like Michigan legalising marijuana, is that the new congressmen don’t actually take those seats until January so we might see the incumbents happily passing all sorts of crazy laws in the next month or two, safe in the knowledge that they won’t face any electoral consequences. Sort of like when David Cameron delivered the Brexit vote before heading of to the countryside to write a book and drink wine rather than doing any real work.
This weekend marked 100 years since the end of the 1st world war and therefore it's also the end of 4 years of seeing the Sunday papers lazily padding out their pages with archive articles. Don’t worry though folks, it’s just one year until we start seeing 80 year commemorative articles about WW2. It's interesting, don't get me wrong, but it's not new. I guess a lifestyle and opinion journal calling itself a newspaper is a legacy thing, like the Carphone Warehouse, or SNP member swearing all ......