Blue wave in U.S. gives Democrats a choice

The win might not have been completely unexpected, but the size of it certainly was.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s Republican party was handily dismantled by the Democrats in Tuesday’s midterm elections, with the Democrats taking control of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.

States including Texas, South Carolina and Kansas elected Democrats, something that hasn’t happened in Kansas, for example, for 94 years. The Democrat who won a senate seat in Kansas, Adam Hamilton, notably campaigned on a moderate platform, promising to listen to all sides. There might be a lesson in that.

An unrepentant Trump said on social media that the loss was because he was not personally on the ballot, “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE.” He also said that he didn’t view the vote as a rejection of his policies: “We’ve had the greatest two years in the history of the presidency.”

Sounds familiar.

The main questions, however, are what’s next for a lame-duck president and a resurgent Democratic party and what’s next for Canada?

First: for Canada, the best hope is that more reasonable heads prevail in a country where things like setting tariffs primarily rest in the hands of the legislative branch, rather than in Donald Trump’s executive orders.

We can at least hope that Canada stops being cast as an enemy taking advantage of the U.S. and that tariffs and foolish annexation threats disappear.

The Trump administration had already said it was nearing a new trade deal with Canada. Let’s hope that common sense — and a basic understanding of economics, sorely lacking in tariff-favouring Trump’s worldview — comes to the fore when it comes to the two countries’ integrated economies.

Maybe the damaged relationship between our two countries can start to be mended — though the pain and disappointment Canadians feel for the U.S. actions under Trump is unlikely to dissipate quickly or completely.

The proof in that pudding is very much in the eating.

But pudding is not likely to be first on the menu with the Democrats: they have so much else to deal with.

As to what’s next for Donald Trump and the newly strengthened Democrats, well, that’s a thornier picture.

Before the vote was counted, President Trump was saying that if the Democrats got control, he would simply veto every piece of legislation they put forward until they agreed to make deals with him.

On Tuesday night, he told the New York Times that he was “absolutely willing to accept those results” and that he would work with the Democrats.

That could change; the mercurial president turns on a dime.

The Democrats have a choice now: they can opt to work for policies that benefit all Americans and attempt to pass legislation that does exactly that or they can fill their time by taking aim at the Trump administration’s clear misdeeds with congressional hearings and investigations.

As much as it would be a pleasant pastime to watch Trump and his cronies get a super-sized helping of just desserts for two years of self-dealing and targeting their enemies, that is not the best course for the U.S.

In the short term, tearing down might be more satisfying than building up, but building is the only way out of the very real swamp American politics has become.

So maybe Adam Hamilton and Kansas voters have a point.

Following the Republican method of turning leadership into a theatre of revenge is no solution.

To be clear, no one should be able to simply escape from crimes and misdemeanours committed while in office.

But making retribution Job No. 1 will only extend the cycle, and continue the decay of the American republic.