Democrats stem Republican tide

There is as yet no clarity about the exact wins and losses for each side in the United States mid-term elections, where the whole of the lower house of the Congress, the House of Representatives, is re-elected, and one-third of the upper house or the Senate, and dozen or more state governorships. It looks like that the Republicans will have an edge in the House of Representatives, and the majority in the Senate could remain with the Democrats. But there is enough and more clarity about the major trends in these elections. The Democrats were not routed as was expected because of high inflation and the tottering economy.

The fact that Democrats stood their ground is also a vindication of President Joe Biden, whose popularity ratings have been around 39 per cent, much too low for an incumbent. A clever political analyst in the mainstream media who had predicted that the Democrats would be wiped out in these elections confessed that the ratings of Biden may have been low with the general public, but the voters did not agree with the public opinion! So, Biden has survived the ‘red scare’ – in America, it means the Republican scare! It was not just a threat of a Republican tsunami or a ‘red wave’.

It was the threat of the far right represented by former President Donald Trump and his dangerous campaign of the ‘stolen election’, that he did not really lose the 2020 presidential election to Biden, but was cheated of his victory. It was not just a lie, but a dangerous lie which raises questions about the credibility of the American electoral system and its democratic setup. In these mid-term election, most of the Trump-backed Republican candidates, but not all, lost the election, and this has for the moment defeated the dangerous slogan of the ‘stolen election’. It means that the Republican party, which has been held in thrall by Trump with his money and his incendiary rhetoric has broken free of his influence, at least partially. This is seen not just as a dampener to Trump’s bid to fight the 2024 presidential election, but it is also seen as strengthening Biden’s prospects for re-election. And with the victory of Republican governor of Florida, Ron Desantis, who is seen as a likely Republican presidential candidate, who is opposed to Trump, the moderate Republicans seem to have recovered their space in the party.

The other major trend of this mid-term election has been the victory of abortionists, who had won big in the western seaboard, but also in conservative Kentucky after the unpopular Supreme Court verdict which had overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade and allowed state legislatures to amend abortion laws. It showed that popular opinion in large parts of America does not agree with the conservative stance of the American Supreme Court. In many ways, these mid-term elections became coterminous with culture wars between Republican far-right conservatives and Democratic liberals. And on the issues of ‘stolen election’ and on abortion, the liberals in America seemed to have won the fight in this round.

The conservatives cannot declare victory in this culture war. It is a respite for America from the Conservative threat, as represented by populist Trump with his dangerous rhetoric. For the last few years, white supremacists and right-wing religious extremists among the majority have become dominant, posing a challenge to pluralist America which had been absorbing ethnic and religious minorities from across the globe. It looked like majority white, Christian America was striking back. The mid-term election results show that Americans have reaffirmed their faith in democratic pluralism, which is reassuring both for America and for the world.