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      It’s time for Democrats to move past Trump | Samuel Moyn

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      It’s time for the Democrats to move past Donald TrumpSamuel MoynAs long as the Democrats wage war on Trump, they avoid the more important work of building a New Deal-style majority America’s midterm elections proved that the era of Donald Trump is passing. But it returns the Democrats and Republicans to the struggle for a working majority after decades of failed policies. It is a struggle that Trump’s ascendancy kicked off – but also postponed with rounds of distraction by his high jinks and obsession with his persona, even after Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.The result that shocked so many in the fall of 2016 was a popular rejection of ruling elites who shared a great deal across partisan lines. Backlash at the economic neoliberalism and endless wars of the age of Ronald Reagan – which later presidents including Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama comfortably inhabited – allowed Trump a victory against mainstream Republicans and then against Hillary Clinton. It nearly allowed Bernie Sanders to break through as presidential candidate in 2016 and 2020; if Sanders failed while Trump succeeded, it was more because of Republican disorganization than because their complaints against both parties were different (though their solutions were).Trump’s march back to power has faltered. Now comes the real challenge for the global left | Martin KettleRead moreIn the six years since, Trump’s bizarre charisma has waylaid both parties. Neither has sought a credible politician and working majority that together might allow replacing the failed policies of the past. Instead, both declared war on Trump himself.As the evanescent Never Trump movement among Republicans rose and fell, Democrats chose an avoidant strategy. Putting Trump himself on perpetual trial as if their own policies had not helped make possible his credibility to millions, Democrats first embraced Robert Mueller as a deus ex machina. When he failed to conform to the script, two impeachments were tried. Even their magnification of the frightening events of 6 January 2021 in congressional hearings in the last year – which had far less impact on yesterday’s election than they hoped – fit the avoidant pattern.The results have been that, even as they presented democracy on the brink and fascism on the march, Democrats have failed to build the transracial working-class majority that alone can get the country beyond the gridlock brought on by the death throes in both parties of the Reagan paradigm.Democrats did far better than expected. How come? | Matthew YglesiasRead moreTo his credit, Joe Biden talked a lot about the need for fundamental change, and he was glowingly described as a new version of Franklin D Roosevelt by his fan club. But 2022 proves that he did not provide enough of the goods. Converting a promise to “build back better” into corporate-friendly versions of climate and infrastructure spending, Biden was forced to abandon any commitment to basic welfare protections. And while at first Congress spent a lot, its largesse didn’t trickle down to ordinary people soon enough to stave off the current results.Roosevelt’s popularity surged after his initial election in 1932, and his own first midterms in 1934 extended his party’s dominance, where Democrats boasted a majority of over 70% of the seats in the House of Representatives. So far, Democrats have decided not to challenge the US supreme court’s abortion decision nationally the way that Roosevelt faced down the enemy juristocracy of his time. The conservative attack on women only helped the Democrats avoid losses in 2022 as grievous as some feared. Unlike Roosevelt, Biden could lose the House, if not the Congress as a whole, promising another two years of gridlock.The only good news, unless the lowest of low bars is set for the Democrats, is that their need to pivot much further beyond their disastrous prior errors is clearer. Trump’s lies were rejected by enough people – and above all his potential rival Ron DeSantis surged in popularity and across ethnic and racial lines in Florida – that the Democrats will have to drop their obsession with the charlatan they blew up into a totalitarian.American politics can no longer be a referendum on Trump, or reduced to the mistaken question of whether democracy will survive. Instead, if they are to transcend impasse, Democrats will have to offer a democratically winning proposition, even as the right wing attempts to prove that its politicians are Roosevelt’s better heirs to lead a working-class party.As the one-hit-wonder band Semisonic once observed: “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” They could have been talking about 2022. No one knows how long it will take one of the parties to act to seize the opportunity that has always been there to build a majority coalition beyond the economic neoliberalism and endless warmaking of past elites. But 2022 has cleared the way to do so.
      Samuel Moyn is a professor of law and history at Yale and the author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World
      TopicsDonald TrumpOpinionUS politicsRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022commentReuse this content More

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      What a relief I’ve been denied my favourite election day hobby – hating fellow Americans | Emma Brockes

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      What a relief I’ve been denied my favourite election day hobby – hating fellow Americans Emma BrockesWhen things going less badly than planned is a small win, the lack of a revival of Trump-backed candidates is cheering In the playground on Tuesday, we stood in a huddle and indulged in the primary joy of election day: loathing one’s fellow Americans. In New York, where I live, the only close race was the race for governor, where the choice between Kathy Hochul, the Democrat incumbent, and Lee Zeldin – a pro-Trump, anti-abortion Republican – threatened to mess with the very idea of the city.Early lessons from the US midterm elections as votes are still being countedRead more“You know who I really hate?” said a friend who had taken the train in from Long Island to vote.I did know. Democrats take more pleasure in hating other Democrats than in hating Republicans. “Andrew Cuomo,” I said.“Yup. If he’d kept his dick in his pants we wouldn’t be here.” A line that could, sadly, be applied to any number of men in American politics. “Now we’re going to end up with a Republican governor because people won’t vote for a woman.”That was midday on Tuesday, when it still seemed probable, per polling and received wisdom about the midterms, that the dominant party in government would suffer the most losses. Anxiety about the economy and inflation; the impression that President Biden is too old; the ugly face of Trumpism apparently not yet vanquished; plus the usual superstitions and defeatist instincts of the left: all led to a mood among Democrats on Tuesday that fell somewhere between panic and gloom.So we did what people in denial do: we told ourselves that, when the results came in overnight, the worst eventuality might actually – sound the counter-intuitition klaxon! – be for the best. A friend had a friend who was a political analyst at Brown (this was how the conversations on Tuesday played out), and she said that it would be no bad thing if the Democrats lost control of Congress because in two years’ time that would mean Republicans would have to carry the can when people voted in the presidential election.This kind of worked. But then there were the races that were so starkly depressing that no amount of fancy footwork could neutralise them. Chief among these was the Pennsylvania Senate race between Dr Oz, the rightwing TV host who said in a recent debate that abortion was a matter between “women, doctors and local political leaders”, and the Democratic candidate, John Fetterman.The importance of this race was underscored when both Biden and Barack Obama turned up to stump for Fetterman on Saturday, undoing all the detachment I’d managed to achieve about the midterms. Watching Obama do his thing in front of a stadium of people in Pittsburgh was intensely moving. It was also a hard reminder of how far we had fallen since 2008. Accustomed as most Americans are these days to seeing the apparent lunatic in any race win, Obama’s appearance seemed to guarantee Oz would ascend to the Senate.Fetterman won with 50.4% of the vote. Kathy Hochul won with 52.5% of the vote. That the size of the relief was so huge, on Wednesday morning, was an indication both of how slim the margins were, and how little we needed to feel some hope. By midday, while it was still unclear whether Congress would remain in the hands of the Democrats, it was apparent there would be no red wave. There was no big revival in support for Trump-backed candidates. And there were some hugely cheering results from the centre of the country, where for example in Kentucky voters defeated the anti-abortion constitutional amendment. For the first time in ages, it was possible to think warmly of people one was used to dismissing as nutters.There were some let-downs among the reliefs. JD Vance, the bearded memoirist turned ultra-right Republican, won the Senate seat in Ohio. Beto O’Rourke lost out once again to Greg Abbott in Texas, and Stacey Abrams was defeated in Georgia. The satisfaction of seeing Trump’s candidates underperform on Wednesday was, meanwhile, eclipsed in part by Ron DeSantis winning decisively in the gubernatorial race in Florida. DeSantis, a more credible version of Trump, remains the most dangerous indication that the movement is alive and well.Still, slight gains, or at least losses on a smaller scale than anticipated, made for a whiplash effect midweek. In the playground on Tuesday, as the kids ran around, we returned to the subject of all the people who were ruining the country. On Wednesday, it was time to feel something else: relief, joy and the disorienting novelty of things going better than planned.
      Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
      TopicsUS midterm elections 2022OpinionUS politicsNew YorkKathy HochulJoe BidenDemocratsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      Democrats are breathing a sigh of relief. But their troubles are far from over

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      AnalysisDemocrats are breathing a sigh of relief. But their troubles are far from overDavid Smith in WashingtonAmerica is returning to an era of divided government and two years of grinding trench warfare It was a result that, Joe Biden said on Wednesday, gave everyone a “whew! sigh of relief” that Make America Great Again (Maga) Republicans are not taking over the government again.Biden won and Donald Trump lost in midterm elections to decide control of Congress. But just as in 2020, a collective exhalation is not enough to spell the end of political dysfunction in America. Things are about to get messy.For all their deflation, Republicans appear on course to capture a majority in the House of Representatives, albeit by a far smaller margin than history has suggested or crystal ball gazers had forecast.Karl Rove on the midterms: ‘Trump looms over this. No ifs or buts’Read moreThat means the end of Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s reign as House speaker, at least for now. Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has announced his intention to take the speaker’s gavel. It might be better described as a poisoned chalice.Should McCarthy prevail, his achingly slim majority will afford little room for maneuver when it comes to legislating. McCarthy will have to do deals either with Democrats or far-right Trump loyalists. In a House where every member fancies him or herself as president, the speaker could find himself perpetually bending to the will of Marjorie Taylor Greene.It is hardly a prescription for national unity. Whatever happens in the Senate, which may be decided again in a Georgia runoff, America is returning to an era of divided government and two years of grinding trench warfare.That spells trouble for Biden’s legislative agenda, echoing the plight of Barack Obama, who did big things in his first two years as president but found slim pickings over the following six.Biden, who campaigned as an apostle of bipartisanship and did enjoy some wins – on infrastructure, gun safety, military veterans’ benefits – will now find Republicans more combative as everything comes to be seen through the prism of the 2024 election.Expect the Republican majority to launch an array of congressional investigations ranging from the reasonable (Biden’s botched withdrawal to Afghanistan) to the grandstanding (Anthony Fauci’s coronavirus pandemic measures and Biden’s son Hunter’s laptop).Expect a battle over lifting the limit on US debt with the potential to cause havoc in the economy. Expect a possible attempt by the the Maga wing of the party to impeach Biden on spurious grounds, effectively as payback for Democrats having twice hit Trump with the ultimate sanction.But Republican overreach could prompt a public backlash and generates sympathy for the incumbent president.Paul Ryan, the most recent Republican House speaker, from 2015 to 2019, warned on the new Control podcast: “The last thing I think the American people want to see is a new majority used as a tool for Trump’s vindictive campaign or a vendetta. That’s not what a majority is for; a majority is for advancing the interests of the American people. Looking forward, not looking backward to settle some guy’s scores. So that’s going to be a bit of a challenge.”Ryan added: “It’s important that the adults in the room temper this by not just chasing conspiracy theories, going down rabbit holes or overreaching and just getting to truth and making sure that you hold an executive branch accountable.”If Republicans are unable to resist the rabbit holes, none of it will be healthy for the governance of democracy, adding to the feedback loop that disaffected millions of people and made them crave a “drain the swamp” outside like Trump in the first place.Hyperpartisan cable news and social media will continue to pour fuel on the flames. Twitter, now controlled by Elon Musk, might welcome back Trump just in time for an epically savage presidential campaign.The chaos would also harm America abroad. Biden has spent two years trying to rebuild alliances and assure the world that its democracy is secure.At a press conference in the state dining room on Wednesday, Biden retold the story of how, just after taking office, he attended a meeting of G7 leaders and assured them that America is back. “One of them turned to me and said, ‘For how long?’ It was a deadly earned question. ‘For how long?’”In other words, was Trump the blip or is Biden the blip?The sight of election-denying extremists ruling the roost in the US Capitol will hardly calm nerves in Berlin or Tokyo. Greene, a congresswoman from Georgia, recently declared: “Under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine. Our country comes first.”Even McCarthy has warned Tuesday that Republicans will not write a “blank check” for Ukraine if they win the House. The bipartisan consensus in Washington on this issue – seen as critical to Biden’s perennial theme of democracy standing up to autocracy – could crumble with huge global ramificationsWith a portrait of a pensive Abraham Lincoln looking on, Biden reflected on Wednesday: “The American people made it clear. They don’t want every day going forward to be a constant political battle. There’s too much of that going on. There’s too much that we have to do. The future of America is too promising to be trapped in an endless political warfare.”But as reporters pressed him over whether he will run in 2024, and with Trump expected to announce his own White House bid next week, the next phase of political warfare is already under way. Given America’s structural flaws and democratic deficits, it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.TopicsHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansNancy PelosiUS politicsDonald TrumpJoe BidenBarack ObamaanalysisReuse this content More

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      Trump said Pence was ‘too honest’ over January 6 plot, says ex-vice-president in book

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      Trump said Pence was ‘too honest’ over January 6 plot, says ex-vice-president in bookPence also seems to blame anti-Trump Lincoln Project for angering former president with political ad, fueling Capitol attack Shortly before the January 6 insurrection, Donald Trump warned Mike Pence he was “too honest” when he hesitated to pursue legalistic attempts to stop certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory and would make Trump’s supporters “hate his guts”, the former vice-president writes in his memoir.The winner of the midterms is not yet clear – but the loser is Donald TrumpRead morePence also seems, bizarrely, to blame the anti-Trump Lincoln Project for enraging Trump with a political ad, thereby fueling the anger that incited the Capitol attack.Pence’s book, So Help Me God, will be published in the US on Tuesday. An extract was published by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.Describing a conversation on New Year’s Day 2021, five days before supporters Trump told to “fight like hell” stormed the US Capitol, Pence writes that he and Trump discussed a lawsuit filed by Republicans, asking a judge to declare the vice-president had “‘exclusive authority and sole discretion to decide which electoral votes should count”.Pence says Trump told him that if the suit “gives you the power, why would you oppose it?”Pence says he “told him, as I had many times, that I didn’t believe I possessed that power under the constitution”.“You’re too honest,” Trump chided. “Hundreds of thousands are gonna hate your guts … People are gonna think you’re stupid.”In the end, hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, some chanting that Pence should be hanged. Nine deaths, including law enforcement suicides, have been linked to the riot.Pence’s book emerges as he seeks to establish himself as an alternative to Trump in the Republican presidential primary for 2024.Trump has indicated he will announce his third consecutive run soon, a plan possibly delayed by midterm elections on Tuesday in which the GOP did not succeed as expected and high-profile Trump-backed candidates failed to win their races.Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor and a much stronger rival to Trump in polling than Pence, provided a bright spot for Republicans with a landslide win that thrust his name back into the spotlight.In hearings held by the House January 6 committee, Pence has been painted as a hero for refusing to attempt to block Biden’s win, even after his life was placed in danger.In the extract published on Thursday, Pence said the Lincoln Project, a group of anti-Trump conservative operatives, angered Trump with an ad which said Pence would “put the final nail in the coffin” of his re-election campaign by certifying Biden’s win.Rick Wilson, a Lincoln Project co-founder, told the Guardian: “It’s no secret that the Lincoln Project has lived rent-free in Donald Trump’s head since 2019. Mike Pence telling this story is one more powerful testimony to just how our ‘audience of one’ strategy unfailingly disrupts Trump world.”On Twitter, Wilson linked to the ad.On the page, Pence describes events inside the Capitol as Trump’s supporters attacked. His account parallels reporting by news outlets and testimony presented by the House committee, to which Pence has not yet testified.The devoutly Christian Pence gives his version of a call with Trump on the morning of 6 January in which Trump has widely been described as calling his vice-president a “pussy”.Pence writes: “The president laid into me. ‘You’ll go down as a wimp,’ he said. ‘If you [don’t block certification], I made a big mistake five years ago!’”Pence describes his refusal, also widely reported, to get in a Secret Service vehicle, lest his protectors drive him away while the attack was in motion.He describes meetings with Trump after the riot, when Trump’s second impeachment was in train. On 11 January, Pence writes, Trump “looked tired, and his voice seemed fainter than usual”. He says Trump “responded with a hint of regret” when he was told Pence’s wife and daughter were also at the Capitol during the deadly attack.“He then asked, ‘Were you scared?’“‘No,’ I replied, ‘I was angry. You and I had our differences that day, Mr President, and seeing those people tearing up the Capitol infuriated me.’ He started to bring up the election, saying that people were angry, but his voice trailed off. I told him he had to set that aside, and he responded quietly, ‘Yeah.’”Pence claims the Capitol rioters, more than 900 of whom have now been charged, some with seditious conspiracy, were “not our movement”. He says Trump spoke with “genuine sadness in his voice” as he “mused: ‘What if we hadn’t had the rally? What if they hadn’t gone to the Capitol? … It’s too terrible to end like this.’”Pence may risk angering Trump by presenting something approaching presidential contrition. Trump claims to regret nothing about his actions on 6 January, denying wrongdoing in the face of multiple investigations, pursuing the lie that his defeat was the result of electoral fraud and presenting rioters as political prisoners.Pence also describes a meeting on 14 January, “the day after President Trump was impeached for the second time”.“I reminded him that I was praying for him,” Pence writes. Trump, he says, answered “Don’t bother” but added: “It’s been fun.”Pence said he told Trump they would “just have to disagree on two things” – January 6 and the fact Pence would “never stop praying” for Trump.Pence says Trump smiled and said: “That’s right – don’t ever change.”TopicsBooksMike PenceDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS Capitol attackUS elections 2020US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden hails ‘good day for democracy’ as Democrats defy midterm expectations

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      Biden hails ‘good day for democracy’ as Democrats defy midterm expectationsPresident says ‘giant red wave didn’t happen’ as Senate still in balance and race for House control much closer than predicted

      US midterm election results 2022: live
      01:27Joe Biden hailed “a good day” for democracy after Democrats defied history and outperformed expectations in America’s midterm elections, leaving control of Congress on a knife-edge.Trump branded midterms’ ‘biggest loser’ as DeSantis win fuels 2024 talkRead moreWith ballots still being counted, Democrats were hopeful about holding the Senate, though the outcome of the tight races in Arizona and Nevada were still uncertain on Wednesday evening and another key race in Georgia was headed to a runoff. Democrats need to win two of those seats to maintain Senate control.Republicans, meanwhile, felt they were on course to win the House – but by a much narrower margin than widely predicted.“We had an election yesterday – it was a good day, I think, for democracy,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “And I think it was a good day for America.”The president added: “While the press and the pundits are predicting a giant red wave, it didn’t happen … Democrats had a strong night.”Biden looked poised for the best midterm performance by an incumbent president’s party since George W Bush in 2002. Perhaps the biggest loser of the night was his predecessor, Donald Trump, as many of his handpicked candidates slumped to defeat, throwing fresh doubt over his political future.The party that controls the White House typically loses seats in midterm elections and opinion polls had shown broad dissatisfaction with Biden and the economy. The conditions appeared ripe for a so-called Republican “red wave” that could have drowned the president’s legislative agenda.But it did not turn out that way and a day that had been expected to dawn with Democratic soul-searching was instead filled with Republican finger-pointing and recriminations.“The Republican party needs to do a really deep introspection look in the mirror right now because this is an absolute disaster,” Marc Thiessen, a former chief speechwriter for Bush, told Fox News.The results of the most hotly contested Senate races were giving many Republicans heartburn. Biden campaigned hard in Pennsylvania, the state of his birth, and was rewarded when John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor who suffered a stroke during the campaign, defeated Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor endorsed by Trump.01:19Senator Mark Kelly maintained a lead over the Republican Blake Masters in Arizona, though Kelly’s colleague from Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto, had fallen behind. But hundreds of thousands of ballots remain uncounted in those races, and election officials have warned it could take days to determine the winners.In Georgia, Senator Raphael Warnock, a pastor, and Republican challenger Herschel Walker, a former American football star, are headed to a 6 December runoff, a race that could determine control of the chamber. The Alaska Senate race was also still too close to call, but the top two candidates are both Republicans.Future of Congress hangs in balance as many races still too close to callRead moreRepublicans had been heavily favoured to take the House and did claim a major prize, winning the New York seat of Sean Patrick Maloney, the head of the Democrats’ campaign arm.But the widespread gains many forecasters predicted failed to materialise. Vulnerable Democrats such as Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan held on, keeping the party’s hopes of House control alive hours after polls closed.It may be days before the House results are clear, with roughly 30 critical races still pending, including several key battles in California; although the state is overall Democratic, there are five competitive races where votes are still being counted and where party affiliation could flip.The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, expressed optimism in the early hours of Wednesday.“While many races remain too close to call, it is clear that House Democratic members and candidates are strongly outperforming expectations across the country,” Pelosi said. “As states continue to tabulate the final results, every vote must be counted as cast.”Kevin McCarthy, the Republican minority leader, appeared at 1.59am, much later than expected, at an event in Washington. He declared: “It is clear we are going to take the House back.”McCarthy later announced his bid to become speaker if Republicans do win the House. But with a wafer-thin majority, he could face political headaches as pro-Trump extremists seek to dominate the agenda.Biden said he would speak to McCarthy later in the day. He told reporters: “I’m prepared to work with my Republican colleagues. The American people have made clear, I think, that they expect the Republicans to be prepared to work with me as well.”The results also brought welcome news for abortion rights supporters devastated by the supreme court’s reversal of Roe v Wade in June. California, Vermont and Michigan voted to strengthen abortion rights into their constitutions, while conservative states Kentucky and Montana rejected measures to restrict access to the procedure.Early exit polls suggested abortion rights had been a motivating factor for many voters, despite predictions the issue would be overshadowed by economic concerns. One exit poll conducted by Edison Research found that 27% of voters named abortion as their top priority, compared to 31% who said the same of inflation.Threats to democracy also appeared to be weighing heavily on voters’ minds. According to AP VoteCast, 44% said the future of democracy was their primary consideration, making it the second-most common response behind inflation.Overall, the night shaped up poorly for election deniers and candidates endorsed by Trump. Although dozens of incumbents who challenged the 2020 presidential result did win, election deniers in key gubernatorial and secretary of state races were on track for defeat. Democrats won governors’ races in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, crucial battlegrounds in recent presidential elections likely to be pivotal again in 2024. Many saw it as yet another rebuke of Trump and his “Make America great again” (Maga) movement following losses in 2018 and 2020.Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, said: “This was supposed to be Maga’s triumphant night. It turned into a massive embarrassment. While we’re still awaiting final results, the overall picture is clear: Democrats massively performed the midterm fundamentals. Voters don’t like anti-abortion zealots. Voters don’t like election deniers. Voters don’t like Trump. And voters don’t like Maga.”As Trump-endorsed candidates fell, others downplayed their connection to the former president. JD Vance, who won the Ohio Republican Senate primary largely thanks to Trump’s endorsement, did not mention his name while delivering a victory speech on Tuesday.Today’s cover: Ron DeSantis shows he’s future of the GOP https://t.co/Ja9rO579r4 pic.twitter.com/9Px1KBH1MP— New York Post (@nypost) November 9, 2022
      The results reportedly infuriated Trump, who is expected to announce another presidential campaign as early as next week. Even more worrisome for him, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, frequently named as a potential presidential candidate, easily cruised to re-election.DeSantis’s 19-point victory in Trump’s home state – notably carrying largely Latino counties such as Miami-Dade and Osceola – only intensified chatter about 2024.In a potential sign of trouble for Trump, the New York Post, which the former president has been known to read avidly, put a photo of DeSantis on its cover. “DeFuture”, the cover’s headline read. “Young GOP star DeSantis romps to victory in Florida.”The glowing coverage is sure to irritate Trump, who is famous for lashing out against fellow Republicans who steal the spotlight and who last week branded the governor “Ron DeSanctimonious”.01:41In a preview of a potentially bloody primary, Trump told Fox News: “I think if he runs, he could hurt himself very badly. I really believe he could hurt himself badly. I would tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering – I know more about him than anybody – other than, perhaps, his wife.”Biden, meanwhile, suggested that he is likely to make a final decision on running early next year with input from his wife, Jill Biden.“Our intention is to run again,” he said, in the White House state dining room. “That’s been our intention, regardless of what the outcome of this election was.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansDemocratsUS politicsJoe BidenDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      The winner of the midterms is not yet clear – but the loser is Donald Trump

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      AnalysisThe winner of the midterms is not yet clear – but the loser is Donald TrumpJonathan Freedland in WashingtonTrumpers fared badly in swing states as Biden bucked the historical trend and avoided heavy defeats in his first term

      US midterm election results 2022: live
      US midterm elections 2022 – latest live news updates
      And the loser is … Donald J Trump. The identity of the winners of America’s midterm elections was not clear the morning after the night before – even at lunchtime on Wednesday the TV anchors could not tell their audiences whether Democrats or Republicans would be in control of the House of Representatives or Senate – but there was no such ambiguity over the fate of the man who continues to loom over US politics, even two years after his removal from the White House. Trump took a beating.True to form, the former president had wanted this election to be all about him. His rallies, nominally staged to boost support for Republican candidates in whichever state he had landed in, were instead intensely focused on himself. At an outdoor event in Latrobe, Pennsylvania on Saturday night, for example, he spoke only fleetingly of the men running for governor or senator, devoting most of his two-hour speech either to relitigating the past – insisting, against all evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen from him – or hinting at a glorious future, talking up his prospects for retaking the presidency in 2024.When he projected charts on to the giant screens, the graphics did not make a case for why Democrats deserved to lose their majorities in Congress, still less offer policy remedies for how the Republicans would combat inflation or crime. No, they showed a series of opinion polls, each one confirming how Trump remained the Republican faithful’s favourite, miles in front of any would-be rival.As things turned out, the ex-president’s trademark narcissism was not so wide of the mark. In a way, the 2022 midterms were indeed all about him – just not in the way he had hoped.Trump, like so many others, had assumed Tuesday would see a red wave rolling across America, sweeping Democrats out of both houses of Congress, toppling blue citadels in the most unexpected places: in the final weekend, there was sufficient panic in the highest reaches of the Democratic party that both Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton were dispatched to New York, one of the bluest states in the union, to shore up a governor who was suddenly thought to be in a tight race. (In fact, she won easily.)Trump was poised to claim credit for a famous victory and to enjoy the fruits of it. He looked forward to a decisive Republican takeover of the House, one that would see the Democrat-led investigation into the attempted insurrection of 6 January 2021 abandoned, its place taken instead by multiple probes into the affairs of the Biden family. As one seasoned Democrat put it to me this week, “He’ll expect the House to operate as his law firm.” But even if his party does eke out an eventual congressional win, there was no Republican tsunami. “Definitely not a Republican wave, that’s for darn sure,” admitted senator and tireless Trump sycophant Lindsey Graham.That’s a surprise, and not only because it upended the Washington conventional wisdom. Heavy midterm defeat for the party of a first-term, incumbent president is seen as the norm, a pendulum effect all but governed by the laws of nature. Barack Obama lost 63 House seats in 2010, just as Bill Clinton lost 52 in 1994. Trump himself lost 40 in 2018. Yet Democratic losses this time will be much fewer, even at a time of great economic hardship and low poll ratings for the Democratic president. How was Biden able to buck that historical trend? The answer lies, in part, with Trump.The former president inserted himself into multiple contests, endorsing candidates at the primaries stage when parties choose their standard-bearers. The Trump seal of approval proved decisive in several, but just look at how those Trump favourites fared. True, the memoirist and venture capitalist JD Vance won in now solidly red Ohio, but in swing states Trumpers performed badly. An election denier who had been present at the 6 January Capitol Hill riot was trounced in the race to be Pennsylvania governor, while TV doctor Mehmet Oz, another Trump pick, was defeated in the Senate race by Democrat John Fetterman – even though the latter faced persistent questions about his ability to serve following a severe stroke in the summer.Perhaps most revealing of the Trump effect was Georgia. Two Republican officials who became nationally known when they resisted Trump pressure to overturn the 2020 presidential count in their state were comfortably re-elected. But Herschel Walker, handpicked by Trump to run for the senate in Georgia, was in a photo finish for that all-important seat, one set to be decided by a run-off next month. Meanwhile, a Trumper in New Hampshire was soundly beaten, while another, Kari Lake, seemed to be trailing in what should have been a winnable contest in Arizona.As Wednesday morning came, a pattern seemed to be emerging. Even Fox News reporters were quoting Republican sources telling them: “If it wasn’t clear before, it should be now. We have a Trump problem.” Trump’s endorsement hurt Republicans in midterms – aside from JD VanceRead moreIt wasn’t just Trump’s talent for picking duff candidates in states Republicans had to win (and will need to win again in 2024). It was the transformation he has wrought in the Republican party itself. A majority of GOP candidates had cast doubt on or outright denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election. That enabled Democrats, starting with Biden himself, to argue that, whatever grievances voters had with the party’s handling of the economy, they had to vote Democrat to save democracy.Bad poll numbers had some wondering if that was a mistaken message, given voters’ preoccupation with rising prices, but it seems to have paid dividends. Along with reproductive rights, imperilled by the supreme court’s summer ruling ending constitutional protection for abortion, the threat to democracy galvanised blue turnout, seemingly turning a red wave into a red ripple. Blame, or credit, for that comes entirely down to Trump, who made election denial a Republican article of faith.All this affects Trump’s prospects for 2024, not least because his most obvious rival for the Republican nomination, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, had such a good night. DeSantis was re-elected in his own state by a landslide, racking up big numbers in historically Democratic counties. At that Saturday rally in Pennsylvania, Trump had mocked the governor, calling him “Ron DeSanctimonious” (not one of his better hostile nicknames). The contrast between the two is no longer flattering to Trump, a point made robustly by one senior Republican: “The one guy [Trump] attacked before election day was DeSantis – the clear winner. Meanwhile, all his guys are shitting the bed.” In Ohio, strikingly, JD Vance did not even mention the former president in his victory speech.Cold, hard logic suggests Republicans should step away from Trump, a man who has now presided over three consecutive defeats in 2018, 2020 and 2022 (four if you include the two Georgia senate runoffs in January 2021). But it won’t be simple. For one thing, Trump’s defenders can argue that they do better when his name is on the ballot than when it is not – and it is true that Republicans did gain congressional seats in 2016 and 2020. But in some ways that underlines the problem. Because in a year when Trump himself is not a candidate, like 2022, his absence weakens hardcore Trump devotees’ desire to turn out, while his looming presence on the scene repels the floating voters who decide elections. Put another way, the Republicans’ problem is not simply Trump the man. It is that they have become Trump’s party.All of this is sweet balm for Democrats, who can now crack open the popcorn and enjoy the spectacle of Republicans fighting each other. But that too has implications for 2024. One clear winner from these midterms is Joe Biden, who presided over a better than expected performance for his party. That will reduce the pressure on him to make way for a fresher candidate for next time. Some Democrats anticipated that the thundercloud of defeat they expected on Tuesday would have one silver lining: Biden, who is showing his 80 years, would feel compelled to announce that he would not seek re-election. Those voices have now been stilled, at least for now.In part, Biden can thank his 2020 antagonist for that. The flaws of the 45th president helped put the 46th in the White House – and now the predecessor may have done his successor another favour. For this election night, like the previous three in America, was all about Donald Trump.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansDemocratsJoe BidenanalysisReuse this content More

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      Republicans have someone to blame for their disappointing result: Donald Trump | Lloyd Green

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      Republicans have someone to blame for their disappointing result: Donald TrumpLloyd GreenTrump hangs over the ballot box like a malignant ghost. He scares more than he draws and, for Biden and the Democrats, he’s a gift that keeps giving On election day, the Republicans suffered widespread humiliation. The much-vaunted “red wave” emerged like a hoax, closer to a red ripple. Although the full results are still being counted, we know this much at least: that across all states and timezones, Republicans underperformed. This morning, the stench of failure hangs over Donald Trump and his party.With Trump’s specter hovering over the ballot box like a malignant ghost, democracy and abortion proved to be more resilient issues than predicted. Crime and inflation remained relevant, but not determinative. Suburban women went Democratic.Trump scares more than he draws. He’s a turn-off who can’t give up the spotlight or the lies. For Joe Biden and the Democrats, that’s a gift that keeps on giving. Chuck Schumer may well keep his job as the leader in the Senate.On the House side, Kevin McCarthy, the presumed next speaker, watches his margins shrink. Lauren Boebert, one of the House’s Trumpiest firebrands, is facing a tight count against her Democratic opponent. McCarthy faces the unenviable task of taming a caucus that is home to Marjorie Taylor Greene. That’s no one’s idea of fun.Looking at the map, voters in Pennsylvania rejected the one-term president’s picks for governor and senator. They said “no” to Dr Oz, the Harvard-educated snake-oil salesman, and Doug Mastriano, an extremist Christian nationalist linked to antisemites and far-right conspiracy theorists.In Georgia, the Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker – the Trump-tapped human mess, alleged domestic abuser, and absent dad – trails incumbent senator Raphael Warnock, minister of the storied Ebenezer Baptist church. Heading into a likely December runoff, Walker’s chances look iffy. The abortions Walker reportedly paid for have come with a political price.Further west in Arizona, Trump-blessed Kari Lake and Blake Masters are running second for governor and senator, respectively. Each bought into the lie that Trump won the 2020 election. On Tuesday, Lake also openly threatened the press.But it wasn’t just about personas and personalities. Traditional conservative positions on abortion and healthcare lacked purchase in otherwise reliably Republican states.In Kentucky, home of Mitch McConnell, voters rejected an attempt to gut the right of privacy and a woman’s right to choose. South Dakotans opted to expand Medicaid coverage against the backdrop of higher living costs. Amid America’s cold civil war, commonsense politics made itself felt.Looking back, the outcome in Kansas months earlier served as a harbinger of what followed. On Tuesday, Michiganders enshrined reproductive rights in their state’s constitution. It is unlikely that supreme court justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett had that outcome on their bingo-cards when they decided to overturn Roe v Wade.Michigan voters also gave a thumbs-down to a Republican gubernatorial candidate who claimed that a young rape victim, forced to carry a child to term, would benefit from the resulting experience, and a state attorney general wannabe who was caught on tape saying the government should restrict the sale of contraceptives.“The bond that those two people made and the fact that out of that tragedy there was healing through that baby, it’s something that we don’t think about,” Tudor Dixon told an interviewer. “The supreme court … has to decide, mark my words, that the privacy issue currently is unworkable,” said Matt DePerno, an advocate of election conspiracy theories and losing Republican attorney general candidate.Crime, however, retains its salience. Kathy Hochul, New York’s accidental governor, needed to call in the Democratic party’s biggest guns in a last-minute salvage effort. The president, vice-president and Bill Clinton all showed up in the Empire state in the campaign’s closing days to shore up morale.In 2020, Biden won New York by 23 points. In 2018, Andrew Cuomo coasted to re-election by an almost identical margin. Hochul’s final margin was less than 6%. The strong performance turned in by Lee Zeldin, her rightwing opponent, helped the Republicans flip several New York congressional seats, and may have cost Nancy Pelosi her gavel.Crime was also an issue on the west coast. Karen Bass, a favorite of progressives, is locked in a footrace for the Los Angeles mayoralty with Rick Caruso, a former Republican and a billionaire real estate developer.In 2017, Bass delivered a eulogy for a leader of the Communist Party USA. Three years later, Biden considered her as a possible running mate. As for Caruso, he garnered the endorsement of Bill Bratton – Los Angeles’ and New York City’s legendary former police chief.While Trump was eating crow and the current West Wing occupant was busy exhaling, Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, was having the night of his life. He won re-election by 20 points, and emerged as a real threat to Trump’s hopes for a 2024 coronation.Trump is scared. Hours before the polls closed, he lashed out at DeSantis, and signaled that he was privy to the governor’s secrets – “things about him that won’t be very flattering”. Of course, after Stormy Daniels, there is little that voters would find shocking.Right now, “Ron DeSanctimonious” occupies rent-free space in Trump’s head. It’s game on for the Republican presidential nod. In the end, both men may emerge bloodied. Suddenly, Biden isn’t looking so old.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
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      Trump’s march back to power has faltered. Now comes the real challenge for the global left | Martin Kettle

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      Trump’s march back to power has faltered. Now comes the real challenge for the global leftMartin KettleThe US midterms have provided modest relief – but dilemmas facing US allies from Ukraine to the UK remain “It could have been a lot worse” will never be the most inspiring verdict on any election result, especially in a political and media environment that insists on absolutist conclusions and disparages nuance. In the case of the US midterms, however, it is the wisest one.American democracy is flawed and under threat. But an overlooked virtue of well-rooted democratic political systems, not just the US version, is that they rarely produce catastrophes, even if sometimes they can come close. The midterms were just such a non-catastrophe.Don’t get this wrong. For the Republicans to win control of the House, particularly in the aftermath of what happened in the US Capitol on 6 January last year, is a genuinely serious development. If Republicans eventually win back control of the Senate as well, it will be even more serious.Either way, it will have direct consequences for Joe Biden’s legislative agenda. It will be felt in Ukraine, as weapons procurement programmes intended for Kyiv become stalled. And it will strengthen the numbers of legislators on Capitol Hill who believe, or who say in public they believe, that Biden stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump.Election deniers in the Republican party won a lot of races this week. Their success in winning party nominations and then getting elected to Washington is an indication that much of the party remains the willing hostage of Trump and his Maga movement. But the midterms suggest that this will not be good news for Republican chances in 2024, especially if Trump is the presidential nominee.The nightmare fatalism that seemed to have overwhelmed many moderate and liberal observers about Trump’s return in the final days of the campaign was palpable. Yet it proved significantly misplaced. There wasn’t a landslide. And there isn’t – yet, at least – a tide carrying Trump back towards the White House either.If anything, these elections suggest election denial and the score-settling Trump agenda have become a drag on the party’s wider electoral chances. That’s now part of the reality of the next two years too. If, as expected, Trump declares next week that he is running in 2024, they will become an even bigger part.Ordinarily this might help his likely chief rival, Ron DeSantis. But Trump has the power to actively wound his party too. He is threatening to go to war with DeSantis if he runs. The internal conflict between them will also affect the larger electoral dynamic, possibly helping Biden or whoever runs next time.The deeper dive into how and why things have turned out this way can only come once all of the midterm contests are concluded – which will not be until December. Nevertheless, the Democratic vote has held up rather better than many expected, perhaps because of the supreme court’s abortion agenda, perhaps because Biden’s economic interventions have helped, and surely also because the Trump threat was a mobilising factor.As a result, prominent election deniers such as Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for state governor in the important swing state of Pennsylvania, were very badly beaten. Candidate quality was also an issue, notably in Georgia, another swing state these days. But voter reluctance over Trump could again be a crucial factor in 2024.Given that midterm elections are always a referendum on the incumbent president, and that Biden’s percentage approval ratings remain in the low 40s, these were always going to be tough contests. Given also that these are unfamiliarly tough economic times for middle America, with inflation (currently around 8% in the US, a 40-year high) seen as the most important issue by most voters, it would have been genuinely striking for the Democrats to buck the historic trend and hold on or even make gains. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t happen.This should be a warning to the Democrats, as well as a temporary relief. If the Democrats were able to limit their losses this time because disapproval of Trump outweighed dissatisfaction with Biden, it may follow that Biden was simply lucky in the way many voters framed the choice at the polls. A fresh candidate such as DeSantis would pose a different and conceivably more effective challenge.All of this underlines why those who watch the US from this side of the Atlantic should be careful too. It is always a mistake to oversimplify in politics. The midterms do not show that the country is hurtling towards a second Trump presidency. But they do not show that it is turning its back on Trump either.This uncertainty is a continuing problem for the whole world. It is certainly one for America’s western allies, since there is no way of predicting how the next two years will play out. In the long run no issue matters more in this context than the climate crisis. In the shorter run, the number one issue at stake is Ukraine.These two years may decide the outcome of the Ukraine war. So it matters to all European nations that the Biden administration will remain Kyiv’s principal ally, supplying the weapons and knowhow to keep Ukraine armed. Nevertheless, the approaching 2024 contest will cast a shadow. Democrats will not want an election with an unfinished war. Republicans could pledge to turn off the spending tap for Ukraine.The dilemmas facing Britain over all this are intense and immediate. For post-Brexit Britain, the US looms large as key ally and partner. Boris Johnson’s integrated review in 2021 of post-Brexit foreign and security policy imagined the US as the guarantor and enhancer of Britain’s roving role in the world. That was fanciful even before Ukraine and before talk of a Trump return grew louder. Now it is even more uncertain.Rishi Sunak, an instinctive Atlanticist, is learning foreign policy on the job. He cannot make airy assumptions about the US. He should make a priority of toning down the post-Brexit rhetoric about Britain’s role. He needs to recognise that a second Trump administration would be a minefield for Britain, and that he must prioritise a more practical approach to Europe.The same also applies to Labour’s response. As the 2024 US election approaches, so will Britain’s own. The inescapable foreign policy challenges facing Keir Starmer will in some ways be easier to navigate than they will for Sunak, since Starmer is more naturally in favour of good relations with Europe. But he will not want the British general election to be fought on that issue, so he may back away from it.The temptation, for Britain and other European nations, after the 2022 midterms is to allow modest relief at the outcome to stop us thinking strategically and in more self-reliant ways about how to respond to the new and profoundly uncertain United States that is evolving across the Atlantic. In an era dominated by the urgency of the climate crisis and the Ukraine war, that would be a foolish choice.
      Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
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