By Aakar Patel
Democracies correct themselves through elections. The leadership of every nation is imperfect, and the problems become especially visible when strongman leaders take charge. With great power comes great overreach, and with overreach comes pushback. The American people have pushed back against their president and the way his administration functions.
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It may surprise some of us, as it certainly did me, that the number one factor behind the Republicans losing both the House and the Senate was neither inflation nor the ill-advised war in Iran. Both ranked high, but the most important reason voters punished Trump’s party was corruption and their unease with the way the government was being run by the wealthy for the wealthy. Some nine in 10 voters ranked this among their top concerns.
The president’s sons have made thousands of crores while he has been in office, and they continue to make more. Trump’s son-in-law has made thousands of crores as well, while holding an unofficial position as an envoy and negotiating with the same Gulf nations from which he is taking money. The president himself has seemingly zoned out and is focused on things like the 600-metre reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument (the long Egyptian-style obelisk), as well as an arch. Photographs show that his 90,000-square-foot ballroom is now larger than the White House itself, let alone the East Wing that it replaced.
Daily reporting on all of this, coming at a time when fuel prices are high and inflation is rising, proved to be the last straw for many Americans, who have brought Trump down a notch. What happens from here will involve a few things. The first is that there is now pressure on Trump to conclude the war and normalise fuel prices and supplies. This might be difficult to achieve, given that the only apparent way forward is to return to the surrender document he signed at Versailles on June 17. This lifted sanctions on Iran and gave it control over the Strait of Hormuz. Trump was fine with it until he was shamed into withdrawing from the MOU by the warmongers surrounding him, who work in Israel’s interests.
That is the second thing that has now changed. The sweeping victories by the Democratic Party’s left wing show that Israel is an unpopular cause among Americans. Two-thirds of Americans have a poor opinion of Israel, including three-fourths of those under 29. This means that, in the long term, Israel may not be able to rely on America to fight its wars. The most influential lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), said on October 21 that it would stop endorsing candidates or giving them money directly. This came after Republicans begged it to stay away from their races, marking a remarkable turnaround.
Along with their opposition to foreign wars, the left wing also strongly advocates policies such as Medicare for All. The aim is to make healthcare accessible in the country where it is the most expensive in the world. It is hard to see how this will not become a consensus position across both parties over time.
The president has appointed his most hawkish anti-immigration supporter, Stephen Miller, as his chief of staff. But the brutality of the agency enforcing immigration laws, known as ICE, has triggered a backlash among ordinary Americans. There is a growing feeling that, apart from criminals, undocumented immigrants (referred to as ‘illegal’ by the unsympathetic) should be allowed to stay and given a pathway to citizenship. Some policy movement in that direction may also be expected over time.
The last thing that will change is Trump’s stranglehold on his party. He draws his power from the fact that candidates he backs usually win their Republican primaries, the contests that precede the general election. As he staggers through his final months as president, those seeking to replace him and challenge his authority will assert themselves as they have not done since 2016.
America has shifted course through elections before. Republican George W. Bush was replaced by Democrat Barack Obama, the first African-American president, because Americans had grown tired of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson, otherwise one of the most accomplished presidents given his record on civil rights, was succeeded by Richard Nixon, who eventually ended America’s involvement in the Vietnam War.
The erosion of the Republican Party’s support in this month’s elections was also evident in the Deep South, including states such as Mississippi and Texas, without which the party cannot win the presidency in 2028 given its narrow path to 270 Electoral College votes. This is bound to force a change in the party and among its leaders as they chart a path to survival.
The world will benefit from the correction America is going through. Less violent foreign intervention will mean less suffering, both direct and indirect, for all of us. Democracies correct themselves through elections. But for that to happen, elections must be fair and free. Where elections are no longer seen as legitimate, the desire for correction expresses itself in other forms, as we are seeing on our streets today.
