The New World Order

Well, it isn't a new world order, I guess. More like a new American order.

But it figures to affect what happens in next year's presidential race.

And that is as worldly as most presidential aspirants probably care to be — at least until they can rightfully claim president–elect as their title.

But that new world order — if it is to come — is still in the future. I'm thinking about something much more immediate.

The new order of which I speak is the new Congress, in which Republicans control the House (by a pretty significant margin, too) and Democrats still hold the majority in the Senate (but by a greatly reduced margin).

This week marks the beginning of the first session of the 112th Congress, and I think it is safe to say things are going to be different in Washington in the next couple of years.

Well, I guess some things haven't changed — like the emphasis. Oh, the focus will remain on domestic policy, but I would have thought that, with unemployment entrenched above 9% and frustrated voters having just taken more than 60 House seats away from the Democrats and given them to the Republicans, job creation would be the top priority for lawmakers in both parties.

There may be some lawmakers for whom job creation really is as urgent as it is for rank–and–file Americans, but, as Paul Kane writes in the Washington Post, House Republicans are already plotting a vote to repeal health care reform next week.

Don't worry, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson counsels supporters of health care reform. Repeal ain't gonna happen, he says — to be precise, he writes, "Just to be clear, there's no earthly chance that a bill repealing the landmark health–care overhaul could make it through Congress and be signed into law" — and he makes that assessment based on two factors, one of which seems far more likely (to me) than the other.

The first premise is that the Democrat–controlled Senate would reject it, but I am skeptical of that. It presumes that Democrats will stand resolutely against any efforts to repeal health care reform — but they were seldom that united when they had the allegedly filibuster–proof majority that they openly coveted.

With the Democrats' margin in the Senate reduced to 53–47 (and two of those 53 members aren't even Democrats — technically), all the Republicans need to do is persuade four members to vote with them (fewer if any of the Democrats are absent due to illness or injury).

Why would they be more resistant to Republican pressure than they were when the numbers were more favorable to them?

There are, as I observed in November, a dozen Democratic senators from states that voted for Republicans in the 2010 midterms who must face those voters in 2012. Some probably will be re–elected; others are not so certain, at least at this point.

As we get closer to the election year and opponents emerge on not only the Republican side but the Democratic side as well, some of those Democrats might look at the polls and decide that going with the prevailing wind and keeping their jobs beats tilting at windmills — or supporting a president who hasn't been particularly supportive of them.

That leads, I suppose, to Robinson's second premise, which seems far more likely to me, although it is hard to see how, if it comes to that, it can be of much benefit to the president.

That premise is that Barack Obama will veto any repeal that passes both chambers. It requires way more support to override a veto than Republicans can come up with under present circumstances. Consequently, Obama wins by default.

But he would still be put in the position of having to rally enough Democrats to his side to prevent the veto from being overridden. How hard that would be might depend upon how the Republicans package their assault — which provision(s) of the reform bill face a legislative challenge (and GOP lawmakers are already talking about challenging individual provisions) and that sort of thing.

So I suppose Robinson is right when he says "there's no earthly chance that a bill repealing the landmark health–care overhaul could make it through Congress and be signed into law."

Republicans have made repealing health care reform the centerpiece of their agenda. It is the #1 item on this generation's "Contract With America" — in no small part because it would deny Obama a signature legislative triumph when he is running for a second term.

But perhaps the symbolism of taking a principled stand against health care reform is what matters most as Republicans try to slither their way back into power. They promised to attempt to do certain things, but it doesn't take a mathematician to see that they simply don't have the numbers to insist on anything at the moment. Thus, the attempt itself may have to suffice for now.

That could change in 2012. Congressional Republicans need to conserve the mood of 2010 and prevent the pendulum from swinging back to the left as quickly as it swung to the right.

If nothing else, though, the Republicans are orderly — and patient. They have earned a reputation for giving their presidential nominations to whoever is perceived to be next in line. They seldom, if ever, proceed to item #2 until item #1 has been achieved.

One thing leads to the next in their philosophy. It was a Republican president, after all, who popularized the "domino theory" that was as responsible as anything else for America's tragic involvement in Vietnam.

As long as I can remember, Republicans have seen things in terms of keeping that first domino from falling — because, presumably, all the other dominoes are weaker. At least, they're too weak to resist when that first domino falls.

That doesn't strike me as a very promising omen of cooperation and bipartisanship.

In the next two years, I wouldn't count on making much headway in breaking the gridlock that seems to be a permanent fixture on Capitol Hill.

Each time the old pendulum swings — no matter in which direction — gridlock seems to tighten its grip. It tends to render the system less and less responsive to the people it is supposed to serve, less and less capable of meeting the needs of the citizenry.

Gridlock is a political tool, used (and nurtured) by whichever side it benefits at the moment.

That's the reality of the new world order.