An earthquake election left Republicans in control of Congress and the White House. How will Democrats respond? RIPR political analyst Scott MacKay posed the question to Sen. Jack Reed, the senior Rhode Island member of Congress.
While many Democrats mourn the election of Donald Trump and Republican ascendancy in the U.S. House and Senate, Reed is taking things one step at a time.
Reed, who is known for both buttoned-down caution and steadfast liberalism, is the longest serving of our state’s four representatives in the House and Senate. A lawyer and military veteran first elected to the House in 1990, he moved up to the Senate after winning election in 1996.
As is the case with fellow Democrats, Reed wasn’t pleased about Donald Trump’s victory. Yet, so far, the Cranston native has mostly been circumspect about Trump’s election, except for the president-elect’s appointment of Steve Bannon as chief White House strategist and senior counselor. Reed called Bannon’s appointment “troubling” and said he has a “divisive record of extremism.”
But he also said the campaign is over and that actions matter more than words.
“The president-elect has the right to pick his team. But if he wants to unify the country he should bring on people who can help him bridge the divide and government,” said Reed.
In politics, revenge and turnabout-is-fair-play often rule the day. When Barack Obama became president in 2009, Senate Republicans did all they could to stymie his agenda. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said his top priority was to keep Obama from winning re-election.
Yet, Reed said he doesn’t think it is a good idea for Democrats to adopt that strategy with Trump. Instead, Reed said, he will seek work with the new president when it is in the best interests of Rhode Island and oppose Trump when it isn’t.
There are issues where Democrats may work with Trump, Reed said. He mentioned trade, infrastructure investments and improving the nation’s defense. Trump did campaign on topics some Democrats, including Reed, have championed, such as punishing American companies that shift jobs abroad and ending big tax breaks for hedge fund titans.
Unlike many other Democrats in Washington, Reed never bought into the neo-liberal regime of free trade and open borders. He voted against NAFTA because he didn’t think it was fair to workers. Trump echoed many of those concerns as he campaigned. If Trump can make trade deals fairer for workers, Reed said, he would support him.
A boost in infrastructure spending could also help Rhode Island, the senator said. Everyone knows the Ocean State’s roads and bridges are in bad shape, so a federal program to help pay for improvements would be welcome, if it featured responsible financing and didn’t bloat deficit spending.
Trump also talked about upgrading the military. Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, says there is a need to improve cyberspace defense systems, an area the Chinese and Russians are working on.
But Reed says he worries about some of Trump‘s campaign comments on diluting U.S. commitments to NATO and European allies. And he says he hopes the new president comes to understand that the Middle East situation is complicated and doesn’t fit easily into campaign slogans.
One area where Reed sharply parts company with Trump’s stated objectives is on immigration. The president-elect has said he will deport two to three million illegal immigrants with criminal records shortly after he takes office in January.
“The notion of physically grabbing two million people and tossing them out of the country is not practical,” said Reed. He noted that Obama has been criticized for his deportation stance. But Reed said he supports Obama’s policies, because they have been carried out in a “professional way” after extensive vetting of immigrants in the country without documentation.
Reed doesn’t face voters until 2020, but he is under no illusions about his party’s chances of regaining the Senate in 2018. While a president usually loses members of Congress in the first midterm election, Democrats have many more Senate seats to defend than Republicans in the next campaign.
His own party, Reed says, must concentrate on voter participation and build the Democratic Party in states now controlled by Republicans, which includes most of the country. He thinks part of the reason Hillary Clinton lost was because of low turnout. Too many voters, Reed says, “believed Hillary was going to win and didn’t come out.”
In a divided country, Reed believes it’s up to the new president “to bring us together.”
Scott MacKay’s commentary can be heard every Monday on Morning Edition at 6:45 and 8:45 and on All Things Considered at 5:44. You can also follow his political reporting and analysis at our `On Politics’ blog at RIPr.org
