The repudiation of Trump should not be seen as a vote for the other party in an alternating circus. It’s a powerful repudiation of the system.
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Donald the Demagogue has now officially become Donald Duck after the midterm election wipeout. With his Republican Party losing “bigly” and the Democrats taking over the House and Senate, the remaining two years will make Trump the classic lame-duck president.
There is no other way of reading the results. It was a massive rejection of Trump and his warmongering, wheeling-and-dealing presidency.
It was such a resounding rebuke that even the Demagogue-in-Chief couldn’t muster his usual bravado about “stolen elections” and “fake results.” There is just no way to spin the defeat. Trump even offered his congratulations to the Democrats on a “good job.”
He did, however, try to make out that the election was a rejection of the GOP, and not him personally. Laughably, Trump said that if his name had been on the ballot, he would have “won by a landslide.” This was despite telling election rallies to “imagine” they were voting for his ticket. The setback was particularly awkward for those Republican candidates whom Trump strongly endorsed.
On the night the polls swept away the Republican “red wall”, Trump sounded tired and resigned in a phone-in interview with Fox News. Maybe it was a late night after a long day, maybe it was age catching up with the 80-year-old president whose mental acuity seems to be waning in recent months. But there seems to be something than his personal condition. There is a sense that the Trump populist phenomenon has run out of steam.
The Donald expertly rode a populist wave of discontent with the establishment in 2016 and again in 2024 when he was re-elected to the White House. He was supposed to have broken the mould of corrupt Washington politics associated with the two main parties, with catchy slogans about “draining the swamp,” “make America great again,” and putting “America first” by ending “endless wars”.
But for many, his second term has shown Trump and his family to be sleazy than any other administration, with its insider deals, market rigging, and cronyism with Big Tech billionaires like Elon Musk, who poured record millions into the midterms to pull for the Republicans.
Trump’s disastrous war on Iran and his unwavering support for Israel have made a mockery of his pledges to end wars. Americans are not just sickened by the shocking bloodshed and destruction; they are sickened by Trump’s blatant duplicity and lies that have rebounded with economic misery on an unprecedented scale. The top grievance of voters going into the midterms was the soaring cost of living due to record prices for fuel and food. But most people understand that the economic pain has resulted from Trump’s insane war on Iran and the shutting down of the Middle East oil supply.
The old demagogue’s tricks have lost their magic, too. Before the election, Trump was warning that if the Democrats won, the country would be taken over by “communists, jihadists and lunatics.” All the scaremongering came to nought as voters, including many who had previously supported Trump, ignored his ranting.
The election of Abdul El-Sayed as the first Muslim senator in the swing state of Michigan was a case in point. Trump had disgracefully smeared El-Sayed with racist abuse as a “dangerous radical”. But on the day, voters rallied to the Democratic candidate who had campaigned on condemning Trump’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Trump’s clown show may be coming to a shambolic end, but populism in the U.S. is not. The surge in votes for the Democrats was not for the party establishment. The left-wing section of the Democrats seemed to make the most impressive gains.
There is a palpable sense that this election cycle signals much than a protest against the incumbent. Americans are demanding radical, progressive politics than the Washington two-party system.
Americans are indignant and angered by the crony capitalism, the obscene wealth inequality, and the never-ending warmongering that is endemic in Washington regardless of whatever party is in power. They thought that Trump would deliver change. He didn’t. He was just of the same, albeit with a conman flourish. In the “post-truth” world, the truth has finally caught up with Trump and the entire American political system.
Trump didn’t change anything because the system remained the same. The Democratic Party is just as venal, just as servile to Wall Street and big corporations, and just as warmongering as the GOP. It may be a case of getting one idiot out for now, but this is not a commercial break for another idiot party to take the stage.
We could be witnessing a historic moment of change in the United States as we are seeing in Europe. Never before in the post-Second World War decades have so many citizens in the West realized that the establishment politics is so discredited and dysfunctional. Elections are held, votes are cast, and nothing ever changes for the benefit of the masses. It’s always war and poverty under every government. A travesty of democracy.
The repudiation of Trump should not be seen as a vote for the other party in an alternating circus. It’s a powerful repudiation of the system.
Bill Clinton’s campaign manager, James Carville, is credited with a winning election strategy for the Democrats in the 1990s based on the slogan, “it’s the economy, stupid.”
That could be updated for a genuine populist movement in the U.S. and Europe today. Out of respect for we, the people, we can omit the stupid bit. It’s the system.
