Moving into uncharted territory

The Nov. 6 election results will launch America into completely unchartered territory. What has happened in the two years of President Donald Trump’s presidency, a period with no historic precedent, will inform what comes next, but the next two years will be wildly different than the previous two.

One key feature of the next phase in our political life will be disappointingly dull. But we will also face fundamental threats to our democracy and opportunities to move toward the kinds of transformational change desired by an overwhelming majority of Americans.

First, Americans should not expect many bills to be approved by Congress and signed by the president. In his post-election news conference, Trump sketched a scenario where he could negotiate deals with the Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives, move the bills over to the U.S. Senate to be passed with Democratic and some Republican support, and sign them into law. He talked about infrastructure and drug pricing as areas where such deals could be struck.

Trump was entirely right in saying that these scenarios could occur. But there is absolutely no reason to expect he aims to negotiate. For one thing, Trump said Democrats would have to choose between performing their constitutional oversight duties — their basic check-and-balance function — or cutting deals. The Democrats shouldn’t, can’t and won’t agree to abandon their oversight obligations.

For another, working out these deals would require Trump to sideline the corporate lobbyists, lawyers and executives in his own administration — the people who are making policy in the administration and who have shown themselves far more interested in protecting their former employers than serving the broad public interest.

Second, Americans should be vigilant about ever-greater abuses of power from Trump. It’s apparent that one lesson he took from the election is that he maximizes his political power when he plays to his worst racist, anti-immigrant and authoritarian tendencies.

That’s one reason it’s so important to respond to the firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and ensure that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is protected. It’s not only about holding accountable anyone who sought to subvert our elections in 2016. It’s about defending the bedrock principle that nobody is above the law, and containing the autocratic inclinations of the most powerful person on the planet.

Third, House Democrats will engage in probing investigative and oversight hearings. If they do their job right, they won’t seek to create “gotcha moments” for the TV cameras. Instead, they will probe and uncover the abuses of the Trump administration: the abuses of power; Trump’s personal conflicts of interest and how they affect policy; and, most fundamentally, the corporate corruption that pervades the administration.

The policies resulting from the corporate takeover are killing and injuring people, and stealing from their wallets, through regulatory rollbacks, failure to enforce safeguards, slashed programs, corporate giveaways and more.

For all we already know, deliberate investigations will reveal depths of corruption and wrongdoing beyond our imagination.

Finally, increasingly powerful grassroots movements are going to demand that House Democrats debate and legislate to respond to the aggressive, progressive agenda that Americans of all political stripes favor.

More than 90 percent of Americans want fundamental campaign finance reform. The House will consider and likely approve the most sweeping pro-democracy, anti-corruption legislation in 50 years.

Americans ranked health care as their top issue in Election Day exit polls. Voters are absolutely terrified of Republican proposals to enable insurers to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. But they are not asking for preservation of the status quo; they want bold changes. An increasingly strong movement will force every member of Congress to take a position on Medicare-for-All, the best way to expand coverage to everyone while reducing the waste and pricing abuses of the health insurance, pharmaceutical and for-profit hospital corporations.

Some very progressive bills will pass the House. Others may fail to garner a majority. Either way, they are not likely to become law with Trump as president.

But they will make clear to the American people that solutions — real solutions, not the demagoguery of Trump — are at hand for the real problems and the legitimate grievances that are widely felt in America. We don’t have to have a rigged political system. We don’t have to accept the rationing of health care based on ability to pay. There’s no reason to tolerate historic levels of wealth and income inequality. These are things for Americans to unify around, and it is hoped we will.

— Robert Weissman is president of Public Citizen.