The playbook for how Washington will be either reshaped or trapped in a lame-duck vortex until 2020 remains unclear in the immediate aftermath of recent mid-term elections, especially amid ongoing recounts and vote challenges. What is a certainty, however, is that companies cannot afford to place their bets on the Trump-era status quo of deregulation and economic nationalism.
In Tuesday night’s elections, Democrats recaptured the House of Representatives and Republicans held onto the Senate. The question now is how this parity among the chambers will affect governance.
In the immediate aftermath of the election, stock prices surged on the apparent belief that a divided Congress would mean a legislative stalemate and far fewer new rules and regulations to fret about. A counter argument, however, is that forcing the “kids to play together” could reawaken, at least to some degree, a spirit of bipartisanship on broadly popular initiatives. History offers a case in point...