November 11, 2022 / Leave Feedback / nezuppal
A few days ago, I wrote about, what was then, the upcoming mid-term elections. I suspected that the Republicans would run away with victories in the House and in the Senate. I imagined complete control of both houses for them and Biden becoming a lame-duck President with little power, just two years into his first (and likely) only term.
How wrong I was.
How happy you should be.
The results. In the House, the Democrats lost 9 seats. A minimal amount and fairly insignificant. The Republicans, meanwhile, gained 7 seats. An embarrassing amount to be honest as 218 seats are needed for a majority in the House and they now have only 218. Key battlefield states did not deliver fully for the Republicans in this election and that is fantastic news.
In the Senate, more surprisingly in my eyes, the Democrats actually managed to gain a seat. Whilst the Republicans lost one! This means that neither party has a majority in either the House or the Senate. With the final results of this election revealing that the Democrats had a total of 46 Senators, compared with the Republican’s 48. To get a majority one party needs more than 51 seats. The Republicans failed to secure even a small majority in either House. Party hats on!
In key battlegrounds, such as the 1st and 4th district of Nevada, were what I feared would lead to a direct and strong majority for the Republicans. But it has not turned out this way and the Republican voters did not show up as strongly as their leaders had hoped. In my eyes, this election was a failure for the Republicans and, perhaps, a demonstration of the end of the Trump era?
Is the left waking up? Well, it may be too soon to say that. But perhaps there is light at the end of this tunnel of madness. Trump brought anger and disruption to an already angry and disrupted political system. Whilst we are all quick, in Britain at least, to quickly claim that Biden is not doing enough or is making fiscally irresponsible policies. What we can at least say is that he has brought statesmanship back to the Presidency.
He may seem a bit old, with videos emerging of him being unable to finish speeches or being helped down flights of stairs, he is a respected man and he has earnt that respect. He does not shout, whine or cry – as Trump does – he focuses on the job at hand. At it has almost, rather sadly, come to the point where this is all we need from a President at the moment. We don’t need a great President like FDR to revolutionise the country. We don’t need powerful, loud leaders like the JFK or Robert Kennedy. Even if we did need Presidents like these. Where are they? What America and the rest of the world needs and has right now is a President who will not stoke more division and insight more hatred, just to gain a mass of support.
Biden has also gained more respect from myself and political commentators for coming out and praising one Republican governor who lost a crucial seat and accepted the result with good grace. Many of his supporters were spouting the same nonsense. Saying that the election was rigged or that there should be a re-count. But this politician was having none of it and Biden was quick to praise this. A small act, but an important one. As I have previously written, we cannot begin questioning the results of every single election result. It’s a slippery slope and one which does not end well.
By nipping this in the bud early, Biden has gained the headlines as political commentators begin to suggest that his brand of politics is changing the way the Republicans are seen, not just in America but across the world.
Since Trump, the Republicans have sought to hold on to their right-wing support base as it had previously brought them the Presidency and allowed them to gain power. The issue with appealing to this marginalised group of people, however, is that it tends to alienate the middle-ground “undecided” voters. Whilst it is true that the number of “undecided” voters is disappearing, with the country becoming more toxic and more divided than ever. It is no longer a case of deciding whether you like a certain President’s policies more than the other, or a Senators’, it is now just about which party they “represent”. You ARE a Republican. Or you ARE a Democrat. That is becoming how people define their political views in America and it is a great shame.
Nevertheless, we should still celebrate me being wrong about the mid-term disaster. These mid-terms were not a disaster, nor were they a triumph. Instead, we should view them with hope and sign of a better future for the USA.
I thoroughly hope that Biden has the good sense and grace to step aside in the next Presidential election. It is too far off to know whether he will or not, with politics changing so fast. But that fact that he is meeting with the Chinese Premier this week and establishing international relations suggests to me that they are on a path to a more united front.
And that’s exactly what the UK and USA need right now, to be united and to face global threats of Putin, Climate Change and China together.
I do not think this marks the end of right-wing fanaticism in America. Nevertheless, this election perhaps demonstrated to the world that, in the words of Churchill, “this is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” I truly hope this is the end of the beginning for a new, more unified United States.
Or maybe I’m dreaming.
Ignorantly Ignorant 