In late 1995, the United States experienced a severe administrative crisis, as the federal government shut down over conflicts between then-Democratic President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress over the funding of education, environmental and public health programs.
This rift, rooted in the conflicting positions of Clinton and then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on a wide range of social, budgetary and moral issues, prevented the 1996 federal budget bill from going through and led, among other things, to the temporary suspension of nearly a million government employees.
The American public held Gingrich directly responsible for the shutdown, saying his rigid positions and belligerent rhetoric brought about the debacle. At the same time, Clinton's approval ratings soared, as he was perceived as the victim of the Republican's hard-line policies. Clinton later leveraged that sympathy to win the 1996 presidential election.
One can hope that the Democrats, who have gained control of the House of Representatives in Tuesday's midterm elections, have learned the lessons of the Republican tale, and that they will spare themselves the embarrassment and public criticism by not trying to cross any red lines and harm vast sectors in American society, just to spite President Donald Trump.
Winning the House, especially given the polarized social and political atmosphere in the United States today, will undoubtedly tempt the Democrats to pursue their own contrarian rhetoric, as well as various initiatives that seek only to humiliate Trump in retribution for his acrimonious 2016 presidential campaign.
As part of the Democrats' efforts to settle the score with the White House, some in their circles are already saying they should use their power in the House not only to promote hearings and investigations into Trump's finances but mostly to initiate impeachment proceedings.
The current consensus is that such a radical move by the Democrats is doomed to fail, as removal from office would require a two-thirds majority in the Senate, which the Republicans control.
However, launching impeachment proceedings in the House Judiciary Committee could itself further exacerbate the polarization and alienation between the two parties, thus edging the United States closer to the brink of a dangerous cultural war.
This is why, despite the profound hostility that clouded the midterm elections, the more optimistic scenario is that once the dust settles, an honest bipartisan effort would be made to tone down the rhetoric and find common ground on a series of hot-button issues on the public agenda, such as curbing health care costs.
If the Democrats are wise enough not to repeat the Republicans' 1995 mistake, one can hope that an era of compromise will soon begin between the two major forces in American politics, even if said compromise is the result of efforts to avoid a potentially disastrous standoff rather than the product of conceptual and ideological understandings.
Such potential compromises can truly reflect the traditional American belief, which has been severely eroded in recent decades, that politics is nothing more than the art of the possible. This will put Capitol Hill back on the path of pragmatic exchanges between political rivals and enable them to separate their ideological and moral beliefs from the American people's needs, which require promoting a legislative agenda that serves the general interest – even at the cost of abandoning the respective dreams of reshaping the social and cultural conversation in America.
