Republicans will soon control the White House, both chambers of Congress, the tilt of the Supreme Court, more state legislative chambers and more governor’s offices
/It is the stunning paradox of American politics. In a bitterly divided nation, where Tuesday’s vote once again showed a country almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, one party now dominates almost everything in American governance.
With Donald J. Trump’s win, Republicans will soon control the White House, both chambers of Congress, the tilt of the Supreme Court, more state legislative chambers than any time in history, and more governor’s offices than they have held in nearly a century.
Republican leaders say that shift — to a level of one-party control that some historians said the Republicans have not seen since the 1920s — will finally end gridlock in now-divided Washington. They say it will allow the party to charge forward on pledges to change policies on health care, immigration and taxes, and expedite changes that have long been sought in the states. Democrats say the change has the potential to undo years of legislation meant to ensure a more equitable America, upend progress fighting climate change, leave millions stranded without health insurance and usher in harsh laws against immigrants.
Experts said that no one thing handed the Republicans so much power, even in places like this that were once reliably blue. The current power balance reflects, among other things, the extraordinary dynamics of a race featuring a television-savvy outsider against the first female major party nominee, the vagaries of turnout in a nation where roughly half of registered voters cast ballots, the systematic redrawing of political maps in ways that favored Republicans, and frustration among voters over lost jobs, low wages and the nation’s changing racial and ethnic mix. [MORE]
