{"id":10644,"date":"2022-11-10T15:02:53","date_gmt":"2022-11-10T13:02:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=10644"},"modified":"2022-11-10T15:02:59","modified_gmt":"2022-11-10T13:02:59","slug":"usa-political-lessons-from-the-november-midterm-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=10644","title":{"rendered":"USA: Political Lessons from the November Midterm Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The promoted “red wave” of the Republicans became\u2026 a wave, bringing a political “haircut” of Donald Trump, but also new challenges for President Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuesday’s electoral “derby” in the USA has not yet blown its final whistle. With the counting of votes still going on, Republicans are very close to gaining control of the House of Representatives, but not with the landslide victory that the Trumps had been betting on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The battle for the Senate, on the other hand, will ultimately be decided in the “thread” and the thriller is expected to be -unexpectedly- long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the results stand so far, the seats are split 48-48, for a total of 100, with four still to be decided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of these, one (in Alaska) goes with mathematical precision to the Republicans. A second one (Nevada) belches towards them. The third (Arizona) tends to turn blue – which is the color of the Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fourth is in Georgia, and all indications are that it will ultimately be decided in a runoff election in December, as none of the main candidates managed to secure 50% of the vote in the first, as required by the state’s new election law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bottom line is that – so far at least – the defeated candidates from both parties have accepted the results with dignity. Even those who supported Donald Trump and openly or indirectly supported his “stolen vote” lie in the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among them is Turkish-American televangelist and highly controversial Mehmet Oz, who ultimately lost to Democratic maverick John Fetterman. Development, which gives hope to the Biden administration that it can avoid the political “hostage” of its legislative agenda by a full Republican-controlled Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any case, it is already clear that their electoral gains are accompanied by much less favorable “terms”, compared to what they expected.<\/p>\n\n\n

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“Blow off”\u2026.Donald Trump<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given their already limited electoral gains, the result is for the Republicans and especially for the Trump “camp” a sharp landing in the reality of the America of 2022, which proves with its vote that it is not only thinking of its pocket (the bad state of the economy gave them the most votes), but also the defense of her rights: from the “election”, to abortions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their most hard-line wing, the Trumpites, appeared to be losing momentum at the polls. The former and would-be new president in 2024, Donald Trump, is already facing fierce criticism within the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the 330 candidates he supported, more than 200 won, but the main and most crucial “duels” were lost, already causing a strong wave of intra-party controversy in his person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With all of this in the background, American President Joe Biden called the midterm elections “a good day for Democracy and, I think, a good day for America.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our democracy has been tested in recent years,” he recalled, “but the American people have spoken with their vote and proved once again that Democracy is what we are.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He declared that he was ready to work “with my Republican colleagues”, of whom – he meaningfully added – “the American people have made it clear that they expect them to be ready to work with me”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He did not fail to\u2026 “bless his beard”, emphasizing that the Democrats “lost fewer seats in the House of Representatives than the first midterm elections of any Democratic president in the last 40 years”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And somewhere in there he reiterated that he intends to run for a second presidential term in two years. That is, when he will be, hopefully, 81 years old\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n

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“Civil War” in the Republican Party<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“While in some ways the election was kind of disappointing, from a personal perspective it was a very big victory,” Donald Trump insisted on Wednesday, as grumbling had already begun in the Republican party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or more precisely, to open their mouths about the need for the party to turn a “page”. However, they do not seem willing to change their “capital”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More and more people are now turning their eyes to 44-year-old Ron DeSandis, the Republican governor of Florida who was re-elected on Tuesday, making no secret of his presidential ambitions and essentially casting himself as a \u2026 improved version of Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultra-conservative, xenophobic and homophobic, he is – among many others – an opponent of abortion, the LGBTI+ community and . For some time now he has been leading an uninvited “culture war” in his state, in the name of “patriotic values”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Allergic” to criticism, he even clashed with Walt Disney when the entertainment “giant” – and largest employer in Florida – criticized new state laws banning any discussion in the state’s schools about LGBTQ+ issues and racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the scale of DeSandis’ electoral victory (“he won” even Miami-Dade, a stronghold of the Democrats) made the eyes of the Republicans sparkle, seeing in his face their new “star”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the intra-party polls before the mid-term elections, he was already first, as long as Trump stayed out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination. A recent Victory Insights poll had the former president and governor neck and neck with each at 50%.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Political lessons, while Dilemmas with challenges are just around the corner<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump already tried on the campaign trail to belittle his inner-party rival, calling him “Ron De-Sanctimonious.” On Monday, on the eve of the midterm elections, he warned DeSandis that if he ran for president he would be making a “big mistake.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But if he does, I could tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering,” he threatened. “I know more about him than maybe his wife who is actively involved in his campaign.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite its toxicity, the foreboding infighting in the Republican Party is expected to work to the advantage of the Biden administration, as it will divide and lead for a considerable period to introvert its political opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social and environmental issues, meanwhile, appear to have strengthened the Democratic base. However, the economy remains an “Achilles heel” for the Biden administration, and the prospect of a second presidential bid by him is dividing even the party’s traditional voters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The promoted “red wave” of the Republicans became\u2026 a wave, bringing a political “haircut” of Donald Trump, but also new challenges for President Biden….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[390,819],"tags":[678,655,779,1290,1621,679,215,1305,70],"class_list":["post-10644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-usa","tag-democrats","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-joe-biden","tag-november-us-elections","tag-republicans","tag-us","tag-us-elections","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10644"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10650,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10644\/revisions\/10650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}