Mid_T 2022

 EDITORIAL 2022-11-9

Le Monde

translation: GoogleTranslate/doxa-louise

Midterms 2022: the two lessons out of the American elections

The first results of the American mid-term elections attest to resiliance from the Democratic camp, Joe Biden thus escaping a sanction vote. By putting too much weight on  divisive candidacies, the expected Republican wave did not take place.

Joe Biden escaped the “thrashing”. Barack Obama used this image to describe the Democratic rout in the House of Representatives in 2010, during his first midterm elections. In his day, Bill Clinton could also have declared one after the 1994 election. Frist results from the mid-term elections, almosy always fatal to the party in power, seem to have somewhat spared Joe Biden.

This soon to be octogenarian president, not comfortable with words, not very popular, and whose mandate is weighed down by a surge in inflation not seen for decades, can look down on his illustrious predecessors, to whom he is often compared to his disadvantage. Halfway through his mandate, he adds this resistance to a substantial legislative record. The blockage that the probable loss of the House of Representatives by his side could produce, before the situation becomes clearer for the Senate, should now prevent him from going further.

This legislative assessment will ultimately result, after Joe Biden has left the White House, in an in-depth modernization of his country, whether in terms of its infrastructure or its adaptation to the challenge posed by climate change. An important legacy for a regularly underestimated political figure.

The second lesson from the narrowness of Republican gains directly concerns the conservative camp. The latter expected a vote of confidence which did not materialize at the polls. Admittedly, republicans were able to benefit from Joe Biden's faults, including his initial misunderstanding of an inflation that proved to be lasting and severe. Republicans have been buoyed by high gas prices at the pump, arguably the most scrutinized index in the United States, but their attractiveness clearly leaves something to be desired.

The Grand Old Party can only blame themselves. By showing itself unable to resist pressure from Donald Trump and his delusional thesis of a rigged presidential election to explain his indisputable defeat in 2020, the Republican Party has cornered itself in an impasse.

Repeating a mistake

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was not wrong to worry about the "quality" of the candidates propelled in the primaries by the former president, especially in the race for control of the Senate. Invocation of royal prerogative and Donald Trump's taste for flamboyant candidacies, straight out of television sets or frankly conspiratorial, produced unconvincing results.

The disappointments recorded overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday in states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania attest to this. The conservatives would probably have had greater success with figures that were more conventional or simply more qualified to perform the functions to which they aspired.

This fault is all the more remarkable in that the Grand Old Party had already committed it a decade ago, at the height of the quasi-insurrectionary wave of the Tea Party. Already at that time, incendiary candidates had won the test of the primary elections before suffering scathing disavowals during the general elections.

The Republican Party has always been a "big tent", according to the established formula, where different sensitivities can coexist. The hunt for ideological purity and the infamous denunciation of paper Republicans ( “Republican in name only  ”) has rarely brought them luck. No more today than the internal tracking of elected officials deemed insufficiently loyal to the defeated one in 2020.

As the presidential election cycle of 2024 is already opening, at a frantic pace which is a democratic plague, the hour of renewal seems imperative for the two major parties, for very different reasons. Democrats must look for replacements because the years, not his record, are catching up with Joe Biden. The Republicans, if they want to win, must on the contrary break with at least part of what defines them today and which is summarized by the name of Donald Trump.