To understand what the midterms mean, you first need a basic understanding of how the US federal government works. In an effort to be brief here, I am going to gloss over many details.
The federal government is comprised of three branches: Judicial (the supreme court), Executive (the president), and Legislative (congress).
The Legislative branch is bicameral; it has two entities: the Senate and the House of Representatives (commonly referred to as “the House"). The Senate has two senators per state, for a total of 100. The House has a number of representatives per state, roughly based on the state’s population, for a total of 435 voting members.
In order for anything to have approval from the Legislative branch, approval from both houses is usually required.
Through a system of checks and balances, cooperation/approval from two of three branches is usually required to get anything done. Before the midterms, the Good Ole Pedophiles (GOP) controlled all three branches.
Following the midterms, the Democrats now have a strong majority in both houses of the Legislative branch. In trump’s first term, the Democrats had a slim majority in both houses, but a few Democrats in both houses were…. convinced…. to vote along Republican lines. With this wider majority, that’s now less likely.
However, the Republicans still have a lame duck determined to seize as much power as possible, a super majority in the supreme court who have already ruled the president is immune from prosecution, a wide majority of judges in the federal court system, and many loyalists is smaller government agencies, regulatory bodies, and lower levels of government.
So, while the Republicans no longer have control of all levers of government, the Democrats don’t control enough to get anything meaningful done. They do now have the power to stop, or at least greatly delay, a lot more than they did before.
Impeachment may again be on the table, but I’m not holding my breath.
ZapBeebz_@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Essentially, the “blue wave” means the Democrats have a majority in both chambers of Congress. They have broadcast widespread opposition to the MAGAgenda, and have the power to do so. Congress passes laws and confirms presidential appointees to executive offices. With Democrats in power, trumps agenda will no longer be rubber stamped by Congress, i.e. they have the power to refuse to confirm trumps nominees, pass laws to counteract executive orders, and control funding streams to rogue federal agencies. Unfortunately, there is not a blue veto-proof majority in Congress, so trump will likely veto a ton of legislation, but that’s preferable to what the last two years have been.
Congress also has the power to open investigations into all the gross misconduct the administration has engaged in, as well as remove offenders from office.
Of course, it remains to be seen how much of these powers will be exercised, but we should remain hopeful.
BooBees@fedinsfw.app 12 hours ago
It should be noted at least one Democrat has said they’re open to confirming Trump Supreme Court appointees, that being U.S. Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado, so far.
and you’ll definitely immediately see a party divided between who thinks they should do some investigation, lots of investigations, or none and just focus on legislation. There is a risk in just sitting all day on cspan doing investigations and getting no where, but legislation as you mentioned is likely to go nowhere other than showing on record who supports or doesn’t a particular policy or change, so there will in fact need to be some balance found if Dems are to hold congress and the senate and take the executive office in 28.
Trump still holds power of foreign policy, and war powers, and he will ramp up those abuses even further to change the narrative and punish the nation for slighting him, as any good narcissist can be expected to do.
Attacker94@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
I hope the new congress addressees this since from the American legal perspective, the war in Iran has not been deemed a war, and since congress is the body that gets to decide to declare war, if the system works as intended they could decline to legitimize the war and thus end hostilities.
Speltrong@feddit.org 12 hours ago
How do they have the power to remove people from office. Say the secretary of some department or a 3rd tier director. How about ability to remove an appointed judge.
They can impeach anyone but what type of majority do they need to make it real. They don’t have the much bite if the DoJ doesn’t do their part and arrest people
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 8 hours ago
To get rid of someone due to impeachment, you need 2/3 of the Senate, something that Democrats alone don’t have. Only one Senator has voted against their party to impeach and they aren’t in office any more.