The midterm elections caused significant changes in local, state and national politics. Conscientious and well qualified local candidates in Southern Minnesota stepped forward and offered to serve the public.

Democrats gained control of the Minnesota House and the House of Representatives in Washington DC. Republicans kept the Senate in Minnesota and the nation’s capital. The 1st Congressional District in SE Minnesota was won by Jim Hagedorn, and Republicans carried the 8th Congressional District with the victory of retired Duluth police officer Peter Stauber. Otherwise, Minnesota turned more politically Blue.

Minnesotans saw fit to inexplicably elect former Congressman Keith Ellison as Attorney General. Ellison had been accused of alleged abuse, anti-Semitism, advocating “open borders,” and being anti-cop, the latter charge leveled by police union officials who claimed Ellison had defended individuals who committed lethal assaults on police officers.

President Trump’s campaign trips achieved results in Southern, Western and Upper Midwest Red states. The Democrat capture of the House resurrects the likely Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Trump and Pelosi gave early statements about bipartisan cooperation. It remains to be seen whether Leftist activists will use their positions and power of the purse to investigate and immobilize President Trump and his agenda.

With Republican control of the Senate, the GOP has investigative power of its own to shed light on previous Democrat shenanigans, appoint more justices and judges, dominate trade, economic and foreign policy. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell will be conferring with Pelosi and the President.

Outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan reportedly begged President Trump to deemphasize the immigration issue and concentrate on his economic and foreign policy successes. Trump’s election campaign themes emphasized all of those issues.

The Republicans benefitted from increased minority supporters who appreciated the growing economy but had concerns about the socio-economic repercussions of illegal immigration. Trump mobilized American soldiers at the U.S.-Mexico border to create a wall of barbed wire to stem the illegal immigrant tide.

American globalist and billionaire George Soros has financed refugee migration through his Open Society. Soros told news outlets that “borders, not refugees” are the problem. Soros was criticized by the Israeli government for allegedly undermining its national policies and interests.

America needs limited legal immigration of vetted migrants based on skills and merit who will assimilate and enrich America culture. The Latin American Caravans don’t seem to bother many younger voters or Democrats, but the dangers of criminal elements, drug distribution, diseases from unvaccinated immigrants (according to Dr. Jan Orient, director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons), and the job competition by illegal immigrants concerns some minority voters.

Trump has survived the concentrated opposition and hostility of the media, some establishment Republicans, and the bureaucratic swamp. Republicans have learned they’d better hitch their wagons to the Trump Team if they want to survive these volatile political times.

The political divide in America reminds some observers of the divisions that faced America during the Vietnam War; and the Civil War of the 1860s when the sectional animosities of anti-War Democrats in the North and the Democrat slaveholders in the South clashed with the Republican Party and President Abraham Lincoln.

Hopefully, the abyss has been breached, and Americans will eventually return to the political traditions of civility and compromise.

 

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