(Photo: Stephen Melkisethian / Flickr)
Change is coming to Congress. The Democrats are favored to win back the Senate this November. The odds of them winning back the House are long, though not impossible. In any event, as the most recent data from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics shows, major gains by the Democrats in the 115th Congress are expected, in part due to the influence of Donald Trump.
For all the Democrats’ flaws, this development will likely open a path for progress on some crucial issues. For six years, the obstructionist GOP Congress has blocked most worthwhile legislation: student loan reform, unemployment benefit extensions, immigration reform and much more. Filled with global-warming deniers, this Congress also stood in the way of desperately needed environmental regulations. But if the Democrats gain seats in the new Congress, what can we expect on these and other key issues, including war and militarism, trade, income inequality and criminal justice?
To consider this question, it is useful to examine the 2006 midterms and their aftermath. The Democrats gained 31 House seats and six Senate seats, and dominated the state elections as well. It was a “Blue Wave” election, celebrated wildly as a strong rebuke of George Bush’s illegal, unprovoked invasion of Iraq, which was the most important issue to voters in 2006. Americans wanted the Democrats in Congress to end the war, as did most US troops by that time. Democrats, well aware of this, rode this antiwar opposition into power. (This same sentiment, notably, is one reason Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary.)
Unfortunately, however, the Democrats didn’t end the war. Democrats were unable, and some seemingly unwilling, to…