At a press conference the morning after the Republicans managed to keep control of the U.S. senate, Mitch McConnell gave Donald Trump credit for the victory. He said he spoke to Nancy Pelosi after the Democratic Party gained control of the House and mentioned that there are many issues on which they can work together. Echoing Trump’s attacks on the media he said that he and his senate colleagues never get enough credit for the many things they accomplish when Democrats and Republicans cooperate. He said he had a long list of those accomplishments but only mentioned infrastructure, taxes and airports. When asked about the probability that the Democrats will attempt to get hold of Trump’s tax returns, he cautioned the Democrats: “the whole business of presidential harassment is interesting…I remember we tried it in the 1990s, we impeached President Clinton, and his numbers went up and ours went down.” He was in fact warning the Democrats that pursuing Trump thought subpoenas is not a good strategy. When asked about DACA McConnell said that he could not imagine that with all the things they have to do in the remaining weeks of this session, they would deal with immigration. On the other hand, Donald Trump claimed victory in the midterm elections in spite of losing control of the House and several key governorships. Trump challenges the Democrats to investigate him, promising to do the same. Exit polls after the Tuesday election showed that the voters do not favor impeachment of the president, and the Democrats should take McConnell’s advise. Joe Scarborough issued a similar warning in his Morning Joe program on MSNBC telling Nanci Pelosi and the new Democratic majority to concentrate on policy. there is no doubt that the Democrats will start issuing subpoenas as soon as they take the leadership of the different committees, but they should listen to the advise of McConnell and Scarborough and concentrate on things they can accomplish for the good of the country. An impeachment process will be very long and divisive. It will take months, because Trump and his lawyers will delay the process and block attempts by the Democrats to obtain his tax records. “The change we need will not come from one election alone,” tweeted Barack Obama, suggesting that the next election in 2020 will require an equal effort on the part of the Democratic Party to bring real change to Washington. But the Democratic Party has a great challenge ahead, because there are no leaders at this time who appear capable of beating Trump in 2020. Michael Moore said that the Democratic Party has to choose someone who is not a politician, someone who has wide appeal and is “beloved by the American people.” Perhaps Moore is right. But the country needs an inspired leader, an honest leader, capable of restoring our faith in government and our institutions, who can bring back credibility to the political system. Someone who can help us to forget the Trump era.
En español:Cooperación y Restauración
