Americans went to the polls yesterday in midterm elections, and delivered an electoral bloodbath for Republicans. The Democrats regained control of the House and Senate by huge margins, as well as capturing a swathe of state governors and legislatures. Texas is now a blue state. Texas!
Its a stunning rejection of the Trump regime. And, if the results are allowed to stand, it will mean Trump's agenda is fucked for the rest of his term. Congress won't pass his laws, fund his programs, or appoint his stooges. And it will investigate his cronies, and hopefully impeach him and his criminal cabinet. On the state level, the shift will mean undoing Republican gerrymandering, ending cooperation with ICE, and hopefully activating the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, effectively ending the anti-democratic electoral college.
The Democratic leadership is trying to downplay all of this, showing how unsuited they are to the moment, but hopefully they'll be rolled and replaced by people who recognise the task ahead of them: not raising money for Democrat political consultants, but defending and enhancing America's democracy and delivering for its people. New York mayor Zohran Mamdani showed the way, and hopefully the rest of the party will follow.
But while its good to see this, and great to see Americans marching to the polls to defend their democracy - Americans who think this signifies a return to normality with the rest of the world are mistaken. That ship has sailed. Electing Trump once could be taken as an aberration; re-electing him shows a systematic weakness in American politics - that they can just go fascist, tear up all their agreements, and start bombing people for shits and giggles like a mad emperor. America has shown that it fundamentally cannot be trusted anymore, and that the rest of the world will have to work around it if we want stability and normality. And we will. The upshot is that the American empire, which depending fundamentally on soft power and cooperation rather than coercion, is over. And Americans better start getting used to the idea.
