Lessons from the midterm elections in the US

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People in the US and in the world are waiting for final results of the midterm elections as runout in one of the Senate seats will take place in December. Evidently this time, Donald Trump’s predicted “red wave” did not take place. Instead, Democrats still have emerged as a strong political force bagging more than 200 seats, while Republicans have gained a slim majority in the Congress. Prior to the midterm elections, a section of the political analysts said, the only reason the Democrats have any chance is because of the abortion issue. It seems, American voters are yet to feel worried at the current inflations, economic crisis, fuel shortage, crimes, and open border, although it is anticipated that the US economy is heading to real catastrophic direction and the influx of illegal migrants will ultimately become a massive headache to Americans and the law enforcement agencies. It has already been reported in the media that, hundreds – if not thousands of terrorists and Islamist militants have already succeeded in entering the US being melted into the crowd of illegal migrants.

Republicans were expected a red wave thinking American voters would reject Democrats because of economic and law crime issues. But it has already been proved – voters gave priority to abortion instead. Female voters casted their ballots in favor of candidates from the Democratic Party as they did not like anti-abortion policy of the Republicans. The 2022 midterm election results are much less decisive than the defeat Obama suffered in 2010, when the Republicans gained 63 seats, or Trump suffered in 2018, when the Democrats gained 41 seats. So far, the Republicans have actually lost the only Senate seat to change hands (Pennsylvania). Meaning, Biden has done considerably better in his Midterms than Obama or Trump.

Following the 2022 midterm elections, onwards there will be battle within the Republican Party centering party nomination for the 2024 presidential election. Donald Trump has already signaled his willingness of running in 2024, while he also has warned Ron DeSantis in particular not to become a challenger. What would be the consequence of Trump’s determination?

According to an NBC poll just before the elections, 62 percent of Republicans polled said they were supporters of the Republican Party and only 30 percent said they were primarily supporters of Trump. This seems to have been confirmed by the Midterms. Trump’s support clearly helped some candidates but not others.

Analysts commenting on Trump running in 2024 said, a lot of that puffed-up ego of Donald Trump will have been deflated. Another factor is his age. He will be 78 and overweight by the time the 2024 elections come round.

Donald (Ron) DeSantis, currently his chief rival, will be in his mid-40s. Nikki Haley, smarter than either of them will be 50. How many Republicans will want to serve under Trump?

Second, perhaps more intriguingly, will President Biden run again in 2024.

Many in the media argue that if Trump runs again, Biden will want another go on the grounds that he has beaten Trump once and no one else can. But first, Trump might not win the nomination, even if his fast food diet hasn’t taken its toll, and second, who knows who will emerge in the next two years (though we now know that it won’t be the two-time loser Beto O’Rourke)?

The crucial problem with Biden, curiously ignored by most right-thinking media pundits, is what Nigel Jones, writing recently in The Spectator, called “The Biden elephant in the room.” “Let us face an unpleasant fact that many seem curiously reluctant to report or discuss,” Jones begins. “President Joe Biden appears to be suffering from severe and worsening cognitive decline which often makes his public appearances an embarrassing debacle.” He turns eighty later this month and will be 82 by the time the 2024 election comes round. It is hard to imagine that he will be in any fit state to take on even Trump, let alone another Republican leader about half his age.

There are two reasons this is so rarely talked about. First, it seems in very bad taste. Second, there is no alternative. Kamala Harris hasn’t even been mentioned on any of the TV programs or social media posts I saw on election night. Not once. Yet she should be the obvious replacement. Young (more than twenty years younger than Biden), feisty, a woman of color, who should win the crucial Black vote in 2024. So why has she vanished? And this takes us back to the problem only Biden could apparently solve in 2020. There is no one else. There were plenty of smart Democrats with serious experience in 2020, but few thoughts any of them could take on Trump and which of them would the people who run the Democratic Party trust to beat Ron DeSantis or some other Republican populist?

That’s why, incredibly, people still talk about Biden running in 2024 as if this is a sane proposition. As Jones writes in the best piece anyone’s written about Biden recently, “Since his election, these ‘gaffes’ seem to have accelerated at an alarming rate. Among the myriad mistakes, misspeaks, and sheer inexplicable gibberish caught on camera are multiple examples of him calling his deputy ‘President Harris’ and shaking hands with the air when people aren’t there. He’s also been filmed being unable to find his way off a stage, getting lost on the White House lawn, reading out instructions on his cue cards and falling fast asleep in the middle of a meeting with Israel’s [then] Prime Minister”.

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