by Micah Tillman
One of the most troubling things about Tuesday’s election results is that they will lead to no conclusions. They will decide no arguments.
Even the pundits who promoted McCain as the centrist who could save Republicans—in this new, non-conservative “era”—won’t conclude that his defeat proves them wrong.
Tuesday’s results leave things just complex enough to make conclusions impossible. Democrats don’t have the 60 votes they need in the Senate to truly control it.
Republicans can still use “obstructionist tactics.”
This means two things. First, the progressivism of the 111th Congress, combined with the progressivism of the Obama White House, will be (slightly) tempered. It will not reveal itself in its purity.
This will be disappointing for good reasons to both progressive and non-progressive citizens alike. Without actual progressivism, there will be no actual results of progressivism.
For progressives, this will mean dreams deferred. Obama will not be able to deliver everything he promised, no matter how much he may want to.
Unless the Senate rules are changed, the Republican opposition will still be able to have a negative effect.
For non-progressives, it will mean a lack of conclusions. Without a pure expression of progressivism whose results can be judged in person, no conclusive proof about the veracity of progressivism will be obtained.
Debates over progressivism will still have to refer back to the Progressive Era. And the lessons of history have little power in the heat of a debate.
That was then. This is now. That was them. This is us.
History, after all, is a contingent science. If it’s a science at all. (I’ve never been convinced that it is; but I’m willing to hear the arguments.)
And no matter how many times people remind themselves that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, no one ever thinks he’s repeating history. He thinks he’s simply trying to go where history couldn’t (but wanted to).
Furthermore, we all agree that this election was history-making. It was a first.
And some of us, at least, think that America is all about possibilities, not limitations. We aren’t bound by history. We make history.
So what would history have to tell us about this brand-new now?
Neither progressives nor anti-progressives are going to be happy with the next four years, therefore.
Progressives won’t get the results they want, and anti-progressives won’t get the conclusions they want.
Nobody wins. The fight goes on.
And America was already war-weary.
Micah Tillman is a lecturer in the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America.