Staff writer Matteo Cardarelli suggests that this year’s US midterm election results vindicated democratic values, but warns against any complacency
It’s been a rough few years for American democracy. Insurrection, political violence, electoral fraud – the marks of authoritarianism – have all instilled self-doubt in the fabric of American society. Pessimism permeates the political biosphere. The cracks in the Liberty Bell take on a different meaning. As identity devolves into a matter of red or blue, the country’s fundamental institutions have been placed under unprecedented strain.
Last month’s midterms were widely expected to be a new, grim chapter in American democracy’s inexorable decline. Ahead of voting, polls showed that over forty percent of Americans still believe that the 2020 election was rigged. A new crop of Republican candidates had come to the fore, besting moderate counterparts in the primaries. They were Donald Trump’s creatures, loyal to him and to his delusions of power – invariably, they indulged his appetite for conspiracy, promoting the 2020 stolen election myth as an integral part of their platform. Many of these candidates had promised to contest results that did not go their way. Last time an election was widely disputed, it ended with multiple dead, the Capitol sacked, and America bereft of direction. In short, there was cause for concern.
Amidst the fears of political violence, voter suppression, and the uncertainty of what would befall America in the coming days, polling stations opened their doors and the people voted. Yet as the results came in, against all odds something pleasant was rediscovered: candidates remembered how to lose.
Most of the defeated firebrands conceded on election night, back-tracking on earlier vows to contest unfavorable results. Importantly, Americans overwhelmingly punished Republican candidates for their adherence to the Trumpist narrative of a stolen election. Democrats cashed in on their rivals’ extremism, and in a series of close races, election deniers were dispatched en masse. State governor races in the key battlegrounds of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Arizona all went Democrats’ way – the radical red wave forecasted by commentators turned out to be little more than a swell.
Given the media’s warnings of doom, gloom and the end-times, this was certainly a bathetic outcome. Yet it was sorely needed. In a badly fractured country, the fact that political parties can once again find common ground on a basic observable fact – who got the most votes – is a sign of progress. The midterms proved, despite concerns to the contrary, that Americans still cherish the basic principles of government, and are willing to punish transgressors. Make no mistake, democracy was on the ballot, and it didn’t lose.
In the post-January 6 world, America had a lot of soul searching to do. Cobbling together the shattered illusion of American exceptionalism – that powerful feeling of “this can’t happen, not in America” – has been an arduous task. This job is by no means over, but we have seen the resilience of US democracy.
The careful work of the January 6 Committee has publicised America’s political introspection, and despite a feeling that its efficacy waned as proceedings dragged on, it undeniably forced Americans to consider the fragility of their democracy. Simultaneously, the slew of legal proceedings against Trump, from tax fraud to seizure of classified documents, bears witness to America’s immune system in the wake of a four-year macro-dose of MAGA. What is bad for Trump tends to be good for democracy. The abysmal night his candidates suffered in the midterms points to his weakening as the undisputed populist puppet-master of middle America’s masses.
In addition, major lawsuits against “fake news” providers have shown a growing intolerance of the epidemic of pseudo-journalistic conspiracy theories that have increasingly polluted the airwaves. Alex Jones’ lawsuits in Texas and Connecticut dealt a death blow to his news company, Infowars, and America is undoubtedly better off without it. Making an example of fringe theorists who have built up a reputation of purveying “alternative facts” is a message to others who regard them as pioneers of a new way of doing news. Rupert Murdoch’s apparent break with the MAGA brand is unlikely to turn Fox into a conscientious news provider, but it may put an end to its slavish cavorting at Trump’s feet.
And while Roe v. Wade’s desecration at the hands of a newly hyperpartisan Supreme Court provided this year’s real low, the strength of the popular backlash proves that America is capable of consensus and organised reaction when it comes to key issues. United in a common belief that what happens to a woman’s body is a woman’s choice, voters rejected pro-life state amendments in all the states they were on the ballot. Even in deeply conservative states such as Kentucky an abortion ban was rejected, while reproductive rights were enshrined in the state constitutions of Michigan, California and Vermont.
Yet this optimism remains tempered. Despite the moderate success that pro-democracy advocates have had in countering the autocratic wave, it has not been all smooth sailing. The waters ahead are riddled with uncertainty.
The attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a few weeks ago should serve as a reminder of the normalisation of political violence for some extremists. Democrats counter-intuitively funding extreme Republicans in primaries for electoral gain denotes a double standard that is unlikely to prove healthy for the integrity of the public sphere in the long run.
Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, nonsensical from a financial point of view, starts to make sense when his free speech absolutism is take into account. Should he succeed in turning Twitter’s platform into an unmoderated space, where hate speech and conspiracy theories runs riot, it would spell trouble for hopes of a return to more civil modes of interaction. And, despite subpar midterm results, Trump announced a new bid for the Presidency a week later. Though there is a distinct feeling that his style of politicking is a little passé, his attempt to regain control of the White House is sure to wreak more damage to the country’s sanity.
All around the country, challenges to common decency spring up as soon as others are quashed. America’s slow road to recovery, embodied by the midterms, does not guarantee a happy ending. With a split Congress taking office in January, the consequences of partisan polarisation are likely to further fragment discourse. Nonetheless, Americans can take solace in the fact that the world did not implode this November, as it did two years ago. In the immediate, the shredding of America’s social fabric was put off for another day. The battle for the soul of the nation continues, but one thing is sure: American democracy will not be cowed so easily.
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