For the first time since the election of President George H.W. Bush in 1988, the President-elect of the United States may not have the backing of both houses of Congress when sworn into office. Despite the statistical models and polling that suggested otherwise, it now seems likely that Republicans will be able to maintain control of the Senate despite losing the White House.
Before the presidential election was even called, opinion pieces were published lamenting the Democrats’ underperformance in down-ticket races, suggesting that a divided government will lead to greater division in the populace at large and that that the real loser of the 2020 election was America. Interestingly, partisans of both sides felt defeated as hopes for political retribution or vindication were dampened.
But for those Americans who have been stuck in the middle, wringing their hands and oscillating between one candidate’s policies and the other’s character, the 2020 election just might allow them to have their cake and eat it, too. With the election of Joe Biden to the presidency, the nation removed the temperament and character that has undermined the office of the president and inflamed our civil discourse for the last four years. However, Republican control of the Senate places a check on many of the extreme policies introduced in the Democratic primary, policies that President-elect Biden would surely feel obligated to support and sign as a “proud Democrat,” whatever his personal preferences.
What a serendipitous ending! Who could have predicted that having divided branches of government would bring about the best outcome?
Yes, that was facetious. Indeed, the Founding Fathers designed a system that would bring about these very outcomes. “Whilst all authority in (the United States) will be derived from and dependent on the society,” wrote James Madison in Federalist 51, “the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority.”
In other words, the founders foresaw a pluralistic society that would be so ideologically diverse that no one coalition could obtain power enough to impose its will indefinitely on the minority. Despite the two-party system that has developed in the United States, and despite the widening variation between those parties, the variation within each party is still working to check the extremes of both sides.
Also in Federalist 51 is Madison’s famous statement about designing governments. “(T)he great difficulty lies in this,” he wrote, “you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” We are watching a government control itself. It really is a beautiful sight to behold.
Even more encouraging was this statement from President-elect Biden, made in his victory speech Saturday night, concerning the “mandate” of this election, if one is determined to use that word:
“The refusal of Democrats and Republicans to cooperate with one another is not due to some mysterious force beyond our control. It’s a decision. It’s a choice we make. And if we can decide not to cooperate, then we can decide to cooperate. And I believe that this is part of the mandate from the American people. They want us to cooperate. That’s the choice I’ll make. And I call on the Congress — Democrats and Republicans alike — to make that choice with me.”
With the presidential race called, and a Georgia runoff election in January that could influence the size of the GOP majority in the Senate, may we unite in our trust and appreciation that the system is working. Divided government may be just the check we need on our politics and our governance looking forward to 2021.
Breck Wightman is a public affairs doctoral student at Indiana University and a graduate fellow at the Rumsfeld Foundation. He holds a master of public administration from the Romney Institute of Public Service and Ethics at Brigham Young University. Follow him on Twitter @GBWightman.