The past two years have been utterly disastrous for anyone in this country on the left as Donald Trump has barreled his way through history, dispensing lies, brags and bigoted comments while attempting to destroy every possible legacy of Barack Obama's presidency. And while he has always not always been successful on that score (Obamacare is still hanging in there), he has trashed treaties, cut taxes for the rich and appointed judges in a manner that has horrified any progressive brave enough to pay attention. And all the while the majority Republican party in congress has encouraged him while shrugging off every racist or sexist comment he has made, caring only about scoring political wins and ignoring his trashing of not only presidential norms, but the norms of basic human dignity. The build up to the mid term elections showed the president at his absolute worst, making false promises of a middle class tax cut coming from an out of session congress(!), claiming(despite numerous constitutional scholars disagreeing) that he could rescind the 14th Amendment guarantee of birthright citizenship by presidential order, and worst of all, demonizing a caravan of Central American refugees making their way to the American border, saying that they were an "invasion", claiming without proof that the caravan contained middle easterners, and implying that they would somehow force their way into the country to commit crimes. He even sent thousands of American troops to the border "to deal with" this so called invasion, in an obscene bit of racist political theater paid for with hundreds of millions of our tax dollars.
Thankfully, his horrible tactics mostly failed; last Tuesday the Democrats regained a majority in The House of Representatives, the first time that they have held a majority there in eight years. While the Republicans strengthened their hold on the Senate, that was expected because most of those races were in conservative states that almost never elect Democrats (that said Ted Cruz winning reelection in Texas was certainly a painful blow).
So the Democrats have only one house of congress, what can they do? Well, quite a bit actually; they now will be able to carry out investigations of all the corruption that Trump and his family have carried out in the past two years that Republicans have ignored. From his violation of the Emoluments clause of the Constitution to the numerous economic ties that his family members have with foreign governments, there's a lot to dig through. And Democrats will soon have the power of the subpoena as a way to force testimony out of those family members, along with any other corrupt members of the Trump administration who now will be held to accountability. They also may be able to compel the president to release his tax returns, something that will probably play out in the courts but is certainly worth a shot.
The Democrats can also pass legislation in the house that may not survive in the Senate, but that will force Republican Senators to go on the record as voting against popular issues like raising the minimum wage. Heck, they may even be able to pass things that Trump will sign, like a much needed infrastructure spending bill.
They can also vote to impeach the president, but seeing as how they will need a super majority in the Senate to actually remove him from office (and that's pretty much impossible), it would mostly be an empty gesture. A more likely scenario is that a frightened Trump, forced to reveal his tax returns and being investigated for his many shady looking financial schemes over the years, could resign rather than suffer the humiliation that would come from a full investigation. Sure, it may not seem likely, but then the idea that an unqualified Reality TV star actually becoming president on a wave of bigotry seemed impossible three years ago. If the Trump presidency has taught us anything, it's that now almost anything is possible in American politics. Hang on, our highly conflicted country is about to start fighting again.
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