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Looking beyond the US mid-term elections
The mid-term elections are normally not paid much attention in the US or outside unlike the presidential elections.
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The mid-term elections are normally not paid much attention in the US or outside unlike the presidential elections. The exceptional interest this time everywhere reflects the impacts of the sharp turn in the US policy under a strong President with his transactional approach on both domestic and global issues because of the country’s international standing--quite a lot of changes have occurred in the first two years of President Donald Trump’s second term due to his untrammelled authority and personality.
All US mid-terms are considered a referendum on the executive presidency’s first two years for possible clues about the outcome of the next presidential election. This November’s mid-terms were seen as a test given the high public expectations aroused at his resounding electoral victory (2024). And, these mid-terms turned out to be even more spectacular where the Republicans lost the Congress, several state legislatures and governorships in historically Republican areas making governance a challenge at the national and the state levels where the executive-legislature relationships are characteristically contentious. The wellsprings of this Republican electoral disaster have been the public dissatisfaction with US’s deepened embroilment in direct and indirect wars in the Persian Gulf and Ukraine respectively notwithstanding the President’s election promises and their spillover effects into the domestic economy in energy costs and inflation, contributed as well by the transactional tariff diplomacy; and, a free-market approach towards technology has resulted in anxiety about youth employment prospects and souring the 2024 expectations in this demographic segment.
In global affairs, an assertive MAGA approach in key bilateral relationships, anti-multilateralism, and President Trump’s transactional style created deepening distrust among US’s traditional allies precipitously altering their bilateral and global outlooks whilst the ‘adversarial’ countries like China and Russia continue to gingerly test the ground to seek incremental advantages as they engage with the US.
Some predictable aftershocks are already being felt. The inevitable blame game in the presidential inner circle is gathering pace and a staunchly MAGA-minded Trump loyalist has taken over as his chief of staff, one of the most powerful positions in the executive branch. The management of the executive and the legislative branches would be difficult given the strong anti-Republican sentiment in the incoming Congress aiming to correct the ‘wrongs’ of the last two years, President’s pursuit of its agenda and his quest for legacy--the key political drivers nevertheless being the sustaining of the momentum by the triumphant Democrats for the 2028 presidential election with the Republicans gearing up to break it. Governance will be unsteady given the looming extension of the budget authorisations (by December 11), National Defence Authorisation Act, stronger Congress oversight including over individual executive officials, unpredictable compromises between resurgent Democrats and Republicans having greater flexibility due to weakened MAGA discipline despite President Trump’s significant control over the Republican party machinery.
The more sobering--and, unsettling--for the existing party organisations is the emergence of newer, younger leaders representing a wider public disappointment with the governance system as it obtains, characterised by its old-style policies and politics. The dissolution of the traditional Republican and Democratic identities is the emergent political paradigm where the traditional leaders have struggled in the face of public anxieties about affordability, high debt to GDP ratio (127%), unbalanced economy with an oversize AI sector, big money and corruption in politics, access to quality education, job opportunities for all groups, especially the new entrants, and environmental challenges impacting on quality of life. The swings in voting behaviour--be they the mid-terms or the presidential--over more than a decade testify to these larger governance challenges; fragmented political groupings on either the right or the left have come up short. This paradigm will be the more challenging in the near to the medium term due to climate change, tepid global economic growth and deepening geopolitical volatility and distrust aggravated by weaponisation of every possible lever of national power. This scenario is forcing national leaders into survival mode everywhere.
Concerning the global affairs post-mid-terms, again in the short- to medium-term, Ukraine will pose a serious challenge for the US diplomacy as Russia feels that it can go for the jugular in the winter months. In the Gulf, the US attempt to seek an off-ramp over the nuclear issue faces the challenge of Iran’s domination of the Strait of Hormuz and the wider Gulf region; the regional power balance having unravelled, the autonomous Houthi capabilities and the widening gyre of conflict in the Horn of Africa reflect major trend towards protracted instability. Despite the US Congress’s hostility towards Iran and Russia, rising energy costs will temper that impulse. Talk about G2 (US-China) or G3 (US-China-Russia) remains highly premature too in this state of geopolitical volatility and the unsettling of power equations.
India’s political and economic stability remains an important factor in the major powers’ calculus constituting the ballast in their relations with it. Some improvement in all of them can be expected but the geopolitical volatility provides a cautionary note against any misstep given the country’s own aspirations for growth in increasingly complex times for the foreseeable future.
(The views expressed are personal)
This article is authored by Yogendra Kumar, former ambassador and author, New Delhi.
