“TRUMPED”, screams a headline in one of the British newspapers on Thursday. Rightly so.
“Blue wave” indeed swept the United States in its midterm elections.
The results were beyond the expectations of even the most optimistic pundits on a potential Democrats landslide.
President Trump’s party was stripped of both the control of Congress and House of Representatives.
It was a devastating blow to Republicans believing that Americans will still be with them even as the one at the helm acts weirder by the day.
The oldest sitting president in US history is paying dearly for his megalomania, vanity, cronyism, economic lunacy and above all, the Iran conflict and his steadfast obsession to appease Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
America during Trump’s second tour as president is almost unrecognisable even by allies.
All the alliances with friendly nations over decades collapsed dramatically. European nations are baffled. Even the neighbour with whom the United States shared the longest border, Canada, is appalled.
Nato is rudderless. Imposing unreasonable trade tariffs on almost all nations of the world sent shock waves to global trade and commerce. At home, the strong-arm tactics using the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rattled the nation.
This election is no ordinary backlash, as the blue tsunami is also perceived as a wholesale rebuke of the Maga movement.
Trump’s bellicose attitude towards the courts, the law, the institutions and everything in between is shocking. This is one president who believes he is above the law and that he is invincible and untouchable.
With Democrats controlling both houses, he is but a lame-duck president in a true sense of the word. There will repercussions on his position – there might be a third attempt of impeachment on the block, the first time in the nation’s history if that happened.
But then as the White House posted on the eve of Democrats winning streak on Tuesday night, “PSA: Trump is still your president” (all in uppercase) he is hardly half way through his second term. A wounded Trump can turn out to be more reckless and dangerous.
The most glaring feature about this election is how some of the reddest states turned blue.
Take the case of Texas, which has always been the Republican’s jewel in the crown. But the ground shifted this time. John Talarico became the first Democrat elected senator in Texas since 1988, the year before he was born. And to add salt to injury to the Republicans, Democrat Gina Hinojosa won against the three-term governor Greg Abbott to become not only the state’s first Latino governor but the first Democrat to win the post since 1990.
Not even the world’s first trillionaire, Elon Musk, can save Texas. The richest man on planet Earth reportedly spent US$500mil to support Republican candidates, and in Texas alone, bankrolled US$212mil to campaign for Ken Paxton for the senate race.
What is more shocking is the fact that states that have been Republican strongholds are falling like dices. Other than Texas, Republicans lost control of Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Colorado, South Carolina and North Carolina. Many of these states have not elected Democrat senators for decades.
What actually happened in the US?
Some argued that this is an election that reminded voters of the character Howard Beale (played with devilish exactitude by Peter Finch) in the 1976 film Network.
At the peak of his frustration Beale, a TV executive shouted: “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
It is about people’s grouses about high cost of living, unaffordable healthcare and disruptions on their jobs due to data centres providing artificial intelligence as human alternatives. And of course the unnecessary and unwinnable hostilities against Iran, the conflict the people didn’t support. The spiralling cost of gas and fuel matters more to people, not bombing Iran.
Eventually “It is the economy, stupid!” to quote James Carville in 1992 as the mantra used by Bill Clinton’s camp during the campaign against George HW Bush. Clinton won resoundingly.
Even Vice-President JD Vance broke ranks with his president when he admitted that one of the reasons for the rout was the Iran conflict.
Democratic candidates went down to the people, they met them, organised townhall meetings, hearing anger and frustrations. They utilised the discontent fully to their benefits and they provided potential solutions.
In late 2025, an unlikely candidate won the mayorship of New York. Zohran Mamdani made the same approach. He campaigned on affordability-focused platform and he won, despite his race and religion.
But the sweetest victory of all in this midterm elections was that of Abdul El-Sayed who made history as the first Muslim to win the Senate race.
His win in Michigan is bitter-sweet considering the odds against him as a Muslim, just like Mamdani in New York.
El-Sayed was not just fighting Islamophobia but the president, his deputy and the powerful pro-Israel lobby Aipac.
Trump didn’t mince words pointing to his name and faith when he labelled El-Sayed a “jihadist” and accused him of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In fact he warned that El-Sayed needs to go through metal detector before entering the Senate chamber.
El-Sayed was slandered through expensive advertisements and social media outfits for being a vocal critic of Israel’s policy in Palestine. He campaigned vigorously for an end to US military aid for Israel.
In his victory speech he told his supporters: “You took a chance on the unlikeliest of candidates. You welcome me into your homes, your churches, your synagogues.”
To his detractors he added: “They want an America that is too small for some of us. We know America is big enough for all of us.”
Hopefully sanity is back in American politics.
The writer is a National Journalism Laureate. He writes extensively on politics, culture and the arts. The views expressed here are his own.
