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**NOVEMBER 25, 2020**

Kuttner on TAP

A New Era of Bipartisanship?

****

Seriously?

Please permit me to go out on a limb, and pardon a dose of optimism.

After Trump finally exits, there could be a surprising amount of
bipartisanship when it comes to dealing with COVID and reviving a
devastated economy. And that could help detoxify our democracy.

Republican senators as well as Democratic ones have constituents who are
mightily suffering and states whose revenues are in free fall. They have
school districts that can't pay teachers and transit systems
drastically cutting services, businesses that are closing and unemployed
people without health insurance.

With Trump gone, a purely artificial source of partisan demonization is
gone, too. You can already see a much-diminished Trump looking a lot
smaller, as he prepares to slink out of the White House.

Wait, wasn't this an era of deepening partisan polarity for decades
before Trump? Yes, but circumstances alter cases. This is a true
national emergency. Republicans hated FDR, but they supported him after
Pearl Harbor.

But what about Mitch McConnell? Won't he continue to stymie Biden,
hoping to make him fail? And won't Trump be howling and revving up his
base?

I predict a quiet Senate Republican Caucus revolt against McConnell.
There may not be enough mainstream Republicans left to deny Trump the
nomination in 2024, assuming he is not in prison. But there are enough
pragmatist GOP senators to demand help for suffering constituents.

I learned something about this latent bipartisanship when I researched
this piece about the stunning success of Elizabeth Warren, no less, in
enlisting conservative Republican co-sponsors

on consumer and investor protection bills. They included Tom Coburn
(OK), Bob Corker (TN), Tom Cotton (AR), Chuck Grassley (IA), John
Kennedy (LA), Thom Tillis (NC), and David Vitter (LA), as well as
moderate Lisa Murkowski (AK).

There are surely ten Republican senators who will insist to McConnell
that it's time to check the partisan guns at the door and get large
sums to help suffering Americans. As a harbinger, you could see the
sheer relief in the return to normalcy, as one Republican after another
demanded that Trump give it up.

Emergency bipartisanship might even be contagious, and healing for
democracy itself.

Have a happy Thanksgiving. We can be thankful that democracy (barely)
held. Now it needs to be reclaimed.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

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Who Will Get Remaining Biden Top Economic Jobs?

It's a game of musical chairs-with sharp elbows and not enough
slots. BY ROBERT KUTTNER

Three Questions Facing the Likely Next Secretary of Defense

Will Michèle Flournoy head the Pentagon after shadow lobbying and
working for defense contractors? BY JONATHAN GUYER

The State of the Parties

Not since 1860 have the parties represented such distinct and mutually
opposed publics. And unlike 1860, neither party effectively commands a
majority. BY HAROLD MEYERSON

Prosecuting Trump Is the Only Way to Heal the Nation

Letting him off the hook for multiple crimes would reinforce Trump's
own contempt for the rule of law. BY ALEXANDER SAMMON

Unsanitized: Being Thankful in a Pandemic

Out of the tragedy comes a few distinct advances. This is The COVID-19
Daily Report for November 25, 2020. BY DAVID DAYEN

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