Midterm results should spell the end for Trump
Greetings from Massachusetts, where the news agenda continues to be consumed by the glacially-paced vote count in key states that will determine political control of the United States Senate and House of Representatives.
Unsurprisingly in Massachusetts, one of the most liberal of American states, there were no surprise results, with the Democratic Party enjoying a clean sweep in the nine House seats on last week’s ballot.
But across much of the country, where the political faultlines run deep, nail-biting results and wafer-thin victory margins have increasingly become the norm.
On election day, America’s newspaper of record, the New York Times, sought to ease its readers’ anxieties about the anticipated Republican red wave by publishing a list of ‘‘evidence-based’’ ways to soothe election stress.
The surefire tips exhorted anxious readers to ‘‘limit your phone scrolling’’, ‘‘breathe like a baby,’’ and ‘‘plunge your face into a bowl of ice water for 15 to 30 seconds’’.
It was an infantilising flourish of journalistic folly that’s been deservedly ridiculed – particularly given the much-vaunted red wave petered out into a trickle.
I’m not sure how many voters in the likes of Arizona and Nevada kept plunging their faces into bowls of ice water, day after day, but the voting tabulation processes in some states are farcical.
The protracted delay in determining the will of the people undermines America’s global claim as democracy’s leading light.
The sustained void in certainty destabilises public confidence and is entirely avoidable.
It’s all very well for election officials to allow for early voting, but how is it acceptable that those ‘‘early’’ voters can then wait until election day to actually pop their ballot papers in the post or deposit them in a drop-box, after having them for weeks?
The painfully elongated tabulation process in chain-dragging states like Arizona and Nevada needs blow-torching.
This is not cause for conspiracy – just clunky incompetence.
They should adopt Florida’s no-nonsense processing approach, underpinned by vastly more polling stations and tighter rules on the return dates for mail-in ballots.
Ironically, the state that made a humiliating hash of the 2000 presidential election vote count, and introduced the world to ‘‘hanging chads’’, now sets the gold standard for processing votes in a timely fashion.
Florida’s population of 22 million now get sameday election results, while Arizona’s 7 million needs a week or longer.
As the wait continues for final results across the country, the Democrats look set to retain control of the Senate, while Republicans should take back the House, albeit with a very narrow majority.
Joe Biden’s Democrats have defied political gravity and the historical trend in midterm elections strongly breaking against the governing party. Graphically characterising so many election races is the repudiation of Trump-aligned election deniers. Critical Senate races in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada have not been won by Republican candidates, after sucking up to the former President and parroting his swivel-eyed lies about ‘‘rigged elections’’.
Independent voters in swing states have sent a thunderous message to the Republican Party – they are done with Donald and his corrosive influence. Another round of Trumpism is a bridge too far for them.
Trump well knows that [DeSantis] is his biggest nemesis, already branding him ‘Ron DeSanctimonious’.
The failure of so many of his key acolytes to win their congressional and gubernatorial races may well upend Trump’s scheduled intentions to declare his presidential candidacy this week.
The red-hot new star is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who thrashed his Democratic rival, in a traditionally knife-edge state, for re-election. His enormous appeal with Latino voters is a potent raid on a traditional Democratic stronghold. Trump well knows he is his biggest nemesis, already branding him ‘‘Ron DeSanctimonious’’.
DeSantis is the thinking person’s Trump, espousing similar principles, with proven leadership qualities, without the baggage, the vendettas and maniacal world view that consumes the 45th President. As the midterms’ biggest loser, the Republican Party should turn the page and embrace a new generation of leadership. DeSantis is surely ‘‘DeFuture’’.
Meanwhile, the Democrats arguably face an even bigger conundrum. After defying his own political funeral with one of the best midterm election performances of any sitting president, should Joe Biden be encouraged, at the age of 82 in 2024, to seek a second term?