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    ‘Democrats need to not blow it’: our panel reacts to the historic midterms | Panel

    Democrats should take the right lessons from their great night – but will they?Trump has been a disaster for our country. His economic plans are incoherent, the Iran war is making inflation worse, and his complicity with Israel’s crimes in Gaza and other acts of lawlessness, from the extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean to the kidnapping of Maduro, have been combined with a continuing coarsening of American culture.Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of the Nation, the founding editor Jacobin, and the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in An Era of Extreme InequalitiesOsita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnistJill Filipovic is an American author Continue reading… More

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    Red and blue America have united in their hatred for Donald Trump | Ben Davis

    This election represents a wholesale rejection of Trump and the Republican party, by every single segment of American societyIn a few years, there’s a good chance we look at Tuesday night as the death knell of Trumpism and the Maga movement. He has indelibly changed the face of American politics, and the basic structure of American institutions. And people are sick of it.Fundamentally, nearly everyone’s lives are worse than they were a decade ago. People were willing to tolerate, or even welcome the coarseness, the attacks on American democratic norms, and the global foreign policy order.Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DC. He worked on the data team for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign Continue reading… More

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    The death knell of Trumpism has finally sounded | Moira Donegan

    The electorate voted decisively to curb the president’s powerThere’s a certain freedom in low expectations. Going in to Tuesday’s midterm elections, forecasts were so grim for the Republicans that poll watchers started trading a kind of knowing joke: that the results would either mean the end of the Trump era, or the end of the polling profession.Amid those sorts of predictions, any Republican victories would have seemed like a minor miracle. The expectation was that Democrats would have a blowout; Republicans, counting on the final tally to be a bit more mixed, would therefore almost certainly have the freedom to claim that they’d done better than anyone had thought they would. Continue reading… More

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    Even if US democracy can be salvaged from Trump, Europe is moving on | Rafael Behr

    It will take decades to rebuild trust in a country that removed a tyrant once – and then reinstated him four years laterWhen Joe Biden entered the White House in 2021 it was possible to believe that Donald Trump’s reign had been an aberration. “America is back. The transatlantic alliance is back,” the new president declared to relieved European leaders shortly after winning the 2020 race. It was true, but not for long.Trump’s defeat proved that US democracy was mechanically operational, not culturally robust. His supporters tried violent subversion to prevent the inauguration of a successor. A second term should have been unthinkable. Republicans who failed to denounce the 6 January insurrection should have been unelectable. Instead, within four years, US voters reinstated the champion of a failed coup against their cherished constitution as commander-in-chief.Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading… More

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    Christian voters in Washington state divided by common religion: ‘I don’t think the US is God’s kingdom on Earth’

    Christians in the south of the state seek to vote their values – but a common faith does not mean a common politicsA few days before the Fourth of July, Ron Peterson, the 38-year-old pastor of Longview United Pentecostal church, stood beneath a large white tent in a parking lot in Longview, Washington.Surrounded by church members selling fireworks for a fundraiser, Peterson remembered watching area residents rally after an industrial accident at the local paper mill killed 11 people in May. “We can all come together,” he said. “There’s not going to be sections in heaven.” Continue reading… More

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    Americans head to polls in midterm elections seen as referendum on Trump

    Control of the Senate and House of Representatives, both currently held by the Republicans, is at stakeAmericans are heading to the polls today in US midterm elections widely seen as a referendum on Donald Trump’s second presidency and a chance for opponents to rein in his untrammeled power.Democrats and Republicans have scrambled in recent days to deliver their final pitches to voters with control of the US Senate and House of Representatives – both currently held by the Republicans – at stake. Continue reading… More

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    Why did a Democrat endorse a rival Republican in Michigan? – The Latest

    Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens has endorsed the Republican candidate for the Senate after a spat with her party’s own candidate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed. The endorsement stunned Stevens’ Democrat colleagues, with one calling it a ‘despicable betrayal’ on the eve of the midterm elections. So what will it mean for the race? Lucy Hough speaks to US southern bureau chief and host of Anywhere but Washington Oliver Laughland Continue reading… More

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    How you (yes you) can fight dark money in elections | Judd Legum

    An easy way to unveil the corporate interests and tech billionaires behind the adsWelcome back to How We Win, a Guardian opinion series with leading thinkers, offering bold ideas for America’s political future. Last week, Katie Phang argued that the Epstein files are a midterms sledgehammer. Today’s edition was written by Judd Legum, the founder and author of Popular Information. Sign up for future editions here.An unprecedented influx of cash from tech billionaires and corporate interests has been injected into the midterms to sway the election.We don’t have to accept the world as it is. There are several ways we can combat dark money, as the balance of power shifts in Washington. Continue reading… More