Let’s hope DC listens to the voters’ OTHER message — and actually starts working together

· New York Post

Both sides made bipartisan noises Wednesday in the wake of Tuesday’s seismic shift in Washington power; let’s all hope it truly opens an era of lawmakers working together for the American people.

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That’s what most voters want, but it’ll mean both Republicans and Democrats looking past their differences and opening up to principled compromise.

Again, the initial signs are good: “I can work with [Democrats] on a lot of things,” President Donald Trump said, pointing to immigration as one area in particular as ripe for cooperation.

He not only can “get along” with Dems he said; “they’ve already called” to “talk about things, and that’s fine.”

Trump correctly notes that, despite their new majorities, Dems won’t have enough votes to override his veto, so they’ll have to work with him to get anything passed.

House Speaker-to-be Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) offered his own olive branch, vowing: “We are ready, willing and able to find bipartisan common ground with the other side of the aisle” to “bring about meaningful change.”

His top priority: “the affordability crisis” — though only time will tell if he accepts that compromise there means bending on such things as the rush to end all fossil-fuel use, which is driving up energy costs.

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (also D-Brooklyn; can we hope for inter-borough amity with the prez from Queens?) was more defiant, declaring: “The days of Trump’s supplicant Senate are over.”

But he still nodded to the larger point: “Voters did not give us the majority so we can do whatever we want,” he admitted, “they entrusted us with the majority to do what they — the American people — want.”

Now he just needs to admit that they want both sides to bear down and work together.

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Also encouraging: Sen.-elect James Talarico (D-Texas) cites “a wide variety of issues that [Dems and Trump] can work together on,” including immigration reform, cutting red tape, promoting housing and lowering costs for Americans.

More: “We have to build bridges in this country, we have to repair the ties that bind us together”; people are upset with the “extremism” on both sides.

Talarico even praised Trump on a red-flag issue: “He has done a better job than the previous administration in securing our border.”

Obviously true, but very few Dems have dared say so: Can others, to deliver for the America people, join him in recognizing where Republicans have done well — and resist shooting down good ideas just because the GOP backs them?

Of course the party’s crazies will resist; they want Schumer and Jeffries to hold endless show trials of Republicans, as well as to push for radical agendas that will go nowhere amid the gridlock.

Democrats serious about progress will push the extremist loudmouths (including the antisemites) to the margins, where they belong.

Republicans, too, will need to face down their cranks and kooks.

For a decade, Democrats’ approach was all-out #Resist Trump; can they move on?

One good start would be joining to pass Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s bipartisan permitting bill ASAP: It speeds up approvals for an “all of the above” approach to energy, both green projects and fossil-fuel ones, to directly address affordability.

Don’t just talk cooperation; stand down now, and start working together for the people.