If there is one thing people can agree on, it's that US has seen immense emotional left/right polarization. The Republicans were in control of the government, which created an opportunity for the Democrats to generate political momentum of blaming everything that went wrong on the Bush administration. Make no mistake: I am not patronizing the democratic party. This is how politics works and I can be no angrier at their behavior than I can at the sun. So what are the possible consequences of this election?

Status Quo

Before analyzing the consequences, let's establish two models for the status quo. To sum each position up in one sentence:

Model 1: The Democratic Version
US is run by a small group of clueless corrupt idiots.

Model 2: The Republican Version
US is run by a large intelligent group who understand what they are doing.

Consequences

The Democrats are getting more control and I see this as good news. Before, they could be a party of the critics. Now, they are part of the government. With the 2008 elections coming up, they have placed themselves into a very difficult position.

If Model 1 is true, then they should have no problem exposing people in this government for who they are thereby resulting in significant improvement from the status quo. This would result in the political right re-evaluating their position and consequent re-unification of the country.

If Model 2 is true, then the Democrats rode a wave of discontent into power and now can be held partially responsible for whatever misfortunes take place. If the present administration was and is doing the best they can under the circumstances, Democrats following their past political slogans would result in deterioration of the situation consequently destroying their chances in the 2008 election. This means they will have to work with the administration and the policy will not see a dramatic change except for the fact that now the democrats will support it thereby re-uniting the coutnry and making the political process significantly more efficient. This would result in the left changing their position on the war, Democrats regaining trust from the right, and the 2008 election being voted on issues rather than party lines.

Either way, US wins.

Conclusion

I support Bush. With great reservations, I support the Iraq war. But I think there is reason to be happy about the Democrats taking the congress as now, rather than being the party of outsiders that can simply point fingers, they have been re-integrated into the system and will disintegrate in 2008 if they make the wrong decisions. And this gives me hope that not only will our government make the right decisions for us, but that the polarization of recent days might subside re-establishing rapport between people in this country.