US midterm elections
Midterm elections take place towards the middle of US
presidents’ term. This time too, President Donald Trump having been in office
for two years by now, elections took place for 35 of the 100 Senate seats, all
435 of the House of Representatives seats, 39 state and territorial
governorships and numerous other state and local elections. These midterm polls
were being cast as a referendum on President Donald Trump, perhaps the most
divisive president in US history. In the event, the results present a mixed
bag, although the Democratic Party made significant gains. The Democrats won
control of the House of Representatives, the lower house of Congress. They also
gained at state level. The Republicans managed to hold on to their majority in
the Senate, but with the House of Representatives slipping from their grasp,
the Trump administration will face an uphill battle on the legislative front. The
trend decipherable in the polls for both chambers was that many defeated
incumbents represented districts that voted for the presidential candidate of
the opposing party in the presidential elections of 2016 that brought Donald
Trump to power. On the whole, the Democrats made great strides in winning seven
governorships, and of the 87 out of 99 state legislatures, they won 350 seats
and seven state legislatures. They also won seven state governments and broke Republican
control of four more.
This midterm election brought to the fore with a vengeance
all the passions for and against Donald Trump since his successful campaign for
president two years ago. While arguably his loyal vote bank stuck with the
incumbent and his Republican Party, disquiet was evident at some of Donald
Trump’s more outlandish positions. Women, minorities, youth seemed determined
to turn out in greater numbers than is usual for relatively low turnout midterm
elections to thwart the Trump populist-reactionary juggernaut. Healthcare,
immigration, racism and all the other contentious issues that Donald Trump has
roiled with his unwise, superficial and plain dumb pronouncements stood
centre-stage in this electoral exercise. The world too was watching to see what
the American electorate would make of a president who wants to preside over the
dismantling of the post-Second World War structure of the world, including the
trans-Atlantic alliance with Europe. Immediately after the midterm polls, Trump
was in France for the commemoration ceremonies of the centenary of the end of World
War I. There too, in his usual blustering style, he took on French President Emmanuel
Macron for suggesting Europe needed its own defence force to guard against
challenges from Russia, China, and even the US. In their meeting in Paris, some
of the previous bonhomie was restored by Macron agreeing that Europe needed to
pay more towards NATO, but the strain underlying the encounter was visible.
Trump’s style at home and abroad, whether on immigration, the media, women, etc
at home, or Iran, North Korea and even old allies such as Europe abroad, is
inherently designed to offend.
Pakistan can draw half a sigh of relief that the ‘referendum’
on Donald Trump as president dented his seeming infallibility. One can
anticipate that the Democrats control of the House of Representatives could
bring the spotlight of accountability on Trump and his sundry lapses and
downright riding roughshod over all within earshot, including his own administration
officials (he fires them like he used to on his reality TV show), but whether
the Republican retained control of the Senate will permit an impeachment of the
incumbent is far from a settled matter. Nevertheless, a Trump under assault at
home from those who rightly regard him as dangerous, could take some of the
wind out of his sails abroad. Iran would welcome that, and Pakistan may not be
far behind, having been subjected to extreme pressures from Washington on many
issues during the last two years. The world can only hope that these midterm
elections represent the nadir of the rise of Trump, which may not now appear as
irresistible as it once did.
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