At Least Two Encouraging Developments

 

Naturally our side is thrilled at the latest election results -- a mini-blue wave, and a hopeful harbinger for 2026.  And that is all fine and good so far as it goes.  But to me the question was never about election results but how far Trump will go to overturn them.  

By that standard, I was not too concerned about this election.  I expected it to be fair and honest and the results to stand.  Not that much is at stake, after all.  It is 2026 and 2028 I am worried about.  The most reassuring development in our country since 2020 is the clear pattern that Republicans not named Trump running for an office other than President will accept defeat.  And it appears that at least this time around, Trump will also accept defeat.  After all, no federal offices are on the line this time, and unwelcome development in state and local elections do not really threaten his power.  Instead of crying fraud and seeking to overturn the outcome, he dismissed it as the result of himself not being on the ballot and the shutdown, which Trump himself orchestrated but naturally refused to accept responsibility for.

This is not to say we are out of the woods by any means.  Trump has taken a narcissistic injury from this election and will no doubt do something really bad in response.

The other encouraging development is that the Supreme Court seemed skeptical of Trump's claim to unlimited tariff power.  This is encouraging in more ways than one.  I was originally not too alarmed about Trump's tariffs, seeing them more as a matter of policy than power, and expecting that they would hurt the economy in ways that undermined, rather than enhanced, Trump's power.  Well, I was wrong.  Tariffs are clearly a power issue, both in terms of Trump using them to evade Congress's power of the purse and in his using them to bully the rest of the world, especially allies.  

Up till now I have assumed that the Supreme Court was giving the President unlimited power in the assumption that it would never be a Democrat again.  Donald Trump would do whatever was necessary, up to and including the use of military force, to ensure that such a thing could never happen.

But a less alarming interpretation is possible.  It may be that the Supreme Court is merely granting powers that it is confident a Democrat would never want to use, such as the power to fire federal employees and refuse to spend duly appropriated funds.  These are asymmetrical powers that a Republican president would freely wield and a Democrat would not.*  But the power of the tariff is one that a hypothetical future Democrat might also want, so the Supreme Court is skeptical.  

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*Although that is no longer so clear, at least where ICE is concerned.