Last Tuesday’s midterm elections resulted in significant changes to the balance of power in Washington, D.C. Republicans won a majority in the Senate with 52 seats, while Democrats now hold 45. The GOP also further solidified their majority in the House of Representatives with 10 new wins in that House. This gives the Republican Party a majority in both houses of the legislative branch. Additionally, Republicans won 26 of 36 governor’s races, including in Massachusetts and President Barack Obama’s home state of Illinois. Many Republicans campaigned on a platform of opposing gridlock in Washington, especially given Obama’s promises to end gridlock in 2008 and 2012. How do you think the wins and losses will affect Obama’s two remaining years in office?

Glen Chesir '15

The question is interesting in that the scope of focus is strictly on the next two years, not the impending presidential election of 2016. The Republican cohort will now, as any good organization should, advocate toward the bigger fish that is the presidency. Therefore, President Obama will now have to deal with the reality of opposition in the legislature. The issues that are generally viewed as Republican strengths will be primed toward the top of the congressional agenda, and presidential failures will be framed as “Democrats” being unable to lead. How President Obama handles his press and marketing—something he has failed at with Obamacare, Ebola, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and others—will be just as vital to his success, as is his actual policy. In today’s age of 140 characters or less, the headline is just as important as the actual action it describes. 

Glen Chesir ’15 is the managing editor of the Justice.

Daniel Mael '15

Obama’s presidency has been characterized by incompetency and a failure on the part of the president to follow through on his promises—Americans realized this and elected to choose a different path for America. In 2007, for example, then-Senator Obama campaigned, in part, on the promise that he would help improve the situation for the black communities in America. As reported in the Nov. 3 edition of the Wall Street Journal, the black-white employment gap has only had widened and remains double the white unemployment rate. In Syria, Obama’s failure to exercise force after the government ignored Obama’s stated red-line only contributed to further carnage and the murder of innocents. These are just two anecdotes that speak to the morally catastrophic results of Obama’s incompetence. I hope that he has a more successful last two years—the average citizen of the world deserves a better future.

Daniel Mael ’15 is the President of Brandeis Republicans and a contributing writer for Truth Revolt.

Rose Wallace '16

 While Tuesday’s elections results were disappointing and perhaps a little worse than expected, they were overall unsurprising. The Republicans were successful in making this election a referendum against President Obama and the Affordable Care Act, both of which are vastly unpopular with the American public. The irony of this election is that though Americans cast their votes for Republicans hoping to lessen political gridlock, it is likely to get worse, not better, in Obama’s last two years. The moderate Democrats in Congress who got voted out have been replaced by far-right Republicans Some, like Arkansas Senator-elect Tom Cotton, hold extremely neoconservative views and will be highly unwilling to compromise with Obama. One silver lining of the election is, although political polarization may be widening, a lot will not change with a Republican controlled Senate. It will be interesting to see how Obama uses his executive power on the issues of immigration and climate change, and if the Republicans will orchestrate another shutdown as some have threatened.

Rose Wallace ’16 interned for Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) this past summer. 

Aaron Dvorkin '17

Prior to the election, I saw that Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) campaign twitter account was using the hashtag “#MakeDCListen” as a rallying call for conservatives. I was perplexed by the seemingly recalcitrant tone of the slogan. “But you are DC!” I thought to myself. After all, it is Senator Cruz’s party who has spent the last four years successfully blocking almost all of the Democrats’ initiatives, from major pieces of legislation to judicial and executive appointments. Last year they even went so far as to shut down the government because they could not accept one major item on the president’s agenda, the Affordable Care Act, that was able to pass Congress before they gained control of the House in 2010. Republicans already had de facto control over D.C before the midterms, and they showed everyone what their agenda is as long as President Obama is in office. In the words of The Who: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Aaron Dvorkin ’17 is a Justice Forum staff writer.