American democracy has corrected course

The good news of the sharp rebuff delivered by the American people to Donald Trump is balanced by the fear that a president who appears increasingly detached from reality might react in more irrational and destructive ways than ever, according to The Independent.

The early signs are mixed. President Trump said he accepted the results of the midterm elections and even said that the Democrats did a “good job”. On the other hand, he has discarded Susan Wiles as his chief of staff and replaced her with Stephen Miller. Ms Wiles was generally considered a stabilising and even moderating influence — these things are relative in the court of the Maga king — whereas Mr Miller is an extremist.

As we report today, Mr Miller has been close to President Trump throughout his two terms in the White House. He has gained influence because, in addition to his extreme views on immigration and foreign policy, he combines bureaucratic ability with outrageous flattery of the president.

He, more than anyone else in the White House, is associated with the policy of sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers to act as the thugs of an authoritarian regime, seeking to round up and deport undocumented immigrants. He also encouraged President Trump to threaten to annex Greenland, the territory of a Nato ally, and to seize Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, in an operation that violated that nation’s sovereignty.

In the remaining two years of Mr Trump’s lame-duck presidency, there is unlikely to be any easing of the cruelty and injustice of the administration’s policies on immigration, therefore.

But the message of the midterm elections was so clear that, on other issues, there is some prospect of Mr Trump seeing sense. The Republican party lost support mainly because the president was blamed for rising prices — in particular for the high price of gasoline and diesel. And the main cause of those high prices was Mr Trump’s unnecessary and prolonged war with Iran.

There are other causes of American inflation, most notably Mr Trump’s tariffs, but protectionism has always been popular, and the connection between it and higher prices is harder for voters to grasp. The war in the Middle East, though, is a different matter.

One striking campaign ad by Scott Colom, the Democrat who has almost certainly won a Senate seat in Mississippi, featured him chatting to people queuing to attend a Trump rally. He asked about Iran, and one of them said: “Get out of it. Pull out. We don’t need to be there. It’s not our problem.”

There is a chance that this is precisely what Mr Trump will do, despite all the pre-election speculation that he would resume attacks on Iran as soon as the votes were cast. If the results had been finely balanced, maybe, but they were not. And the message about gasoline and diesel prices was so emphatic that he must feel the pressure to declare victory and cut loose.

Mr Trump is sensitive to public opinion. He may not face re-election, but he hates to be thought of as a loser, and he will want to tell himself the story of how he was a popular president who left the crowd wanting more.

Let us hope that the same pressure will also push him towards seeking an end to the Ukrainian war on terms acceptable to the Ukrainian people. After all, it was his desire to save Republican votes that drove him to the appalling deal with Vladimir Putin to buy Russian diesel. That did not work. Now he could try to gain popularity by ending the war instead.

We fear that a two-year reign of Mr Miller as White House chief of staff means a turning of the authoritarian screw in domestic policy. But we can hope for some good news for the US and the world if Mr Trump heeds the unmistakable message of these elections and seeks peace in Ukraine and the Middle East.