Ron Wolf:
The victorious Democrats flooded the zone on the Sunday morning political talk shows. Likely Speaker Nancy Pelosi and ranking members of key house committees who are in line to become the chairmen hit the airwaves to explain their priorities. The guests included Rep. Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler of the Judiciary Committee and Elijah Cummings of the Government Oversight Committee.
Apart from any specific actions they said they would pursue, the overall message they presented was a dramatic change in the tone of our politics. Throughout the midterm campaign, Democratic candidates and the party leadership showed great discipline in avoiding name-calling, insults, demonization, accusations and calamitous predictions invoked by their opponents. They generally refused to play the game by Trumpian rules.
The incoming Democratic House leadership displayed that same discipline Sunday morning. They were calm, assured and firm. There was no post-election gloating — no spiking of the ball or dancing in the end zone.
The overall impression is that the strategy for the Democrats now will be a civility and decency offensive. They appear eager to present a sharp contrast to their GOP counterparts by avoiding all the fake macho posturing and bluster and wild accusations we’ve seen from the GOP throughout the campaign.
Ron Wolf is a retired daily newspaper journalist based in California who continues to write about politics and the media. He can be reached at ronwolf@outlook.com
Photo by History in HD