In many curious ways, the midterm elections in the United States on November 8 are almost as significant as the presidential polls of two years ago. At stake is control over the US Congress, critical to legislation and key appointments.
More significantly, the election results could permanently erode the legitimacy of the Joe Biden administration and signal the robust return of Donald Trump and Trumpism in all its Frankenstein-like manifestations. If there is, in a very perverse way, a potential star on the political firmament, it is Trump, and the stripes are represented by the deep fault lines that he has dug within the country.
These elections are a battle for the soul of America; a fight to determine what it is that constitutes today the ‘America dream’. And polls suggest the Democratic Party may be on the verge of losing this battle.
The Republicans could win the House of Representatives decisively, and the Democrats would be very lucky to retain control of the Senate. The latest evidence suggests the composition of the Senate will depend on the outcome in four critical states — Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Arizona — and possibly New Hampshire.
American politics over the next two years, in the run-up to the presidential election of 2024, could witness conflict on a scale not experienced in recent history.
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For Democratic voters, and what once constituted middle America, the critical issue in the election is the deep conspiracy by Trumpism to subvert democracy, driven by those on the far end of the Republican right who believe in the ‘grand conspiracy’ that Trump did not lose the last presidential election — it was stolen from him.
Today, many Democratic voters would argue, it is Trump who controls the Republican Party, not the other way round. A favourable midterms outcome would make it extremely difficult to deny him the presidential nomination two years later. For those opposing Trump and his politics, including the neo-conservative scholar Robert Kagan:
“This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac ‘tapping into’ popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party — out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear — falling into line behind him.”
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However, for most voters, the state of the economy remains the top concern. A New York Times survey found 26% of voters view the economy as the most important problem facing the country — more than any other issue, and CBS News published a survey that found “65% of voters believe the economy is getting worse and 68% say the Biden administration could do more to combat inflation”.
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The electorate is deeply divided along partisan and racial lines, and there is wide economic disparity between the rich and poor. On almost every issue that matters, there is a Manichean divide between Trump supporters and the rainbow coalition that once stood by Biden: deep economic precarity, unprecedented levels of racial tension, fundamental differences over health care, concerns over packing the courts (including the Supreme Court), and violence on the streets of many cities including Minneapolis (where George Floyd’s “killing” inspired the Black Lives Matter movement), Atlanta, Dallas, Cleveland, Raleigh, Los Angeles, and New York.
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The landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in ‘Roe v. Wade’, rooted deeply in the American psyche, was overturned earlier this year. The case concerned the constitutionality of a Texas statute that made it a crime to obtain an abortion except in certain specific circumstances, but was embedded in larger issues related to choices and women’s rights. Roe established constitutional protection for the right of women to make decisions for their own health, and paved the way for greater political, social and economic involvement of women in public life. The Conservative supermajority in the Supreme Court has now withdrawn that constitutional protection.
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The academic Robert Reich, a former advisor to Bill Clinton, wrote recently: “In elections before this one, I’ve worried about Republicans taking over and implementing their policy preferences — against political rights in the dark days of Senator Joe McCarthy’s communist witch-hunt in the early 1950s; against civil rights in the late 1950s and early 1960s; against Medicare in the mid-1960s; for smaller government in the 1970s; for tax cuts for the rich in the 1980s; for a balanced budget in the early 1990s; against universal health care in the late 1990s and early 2000s; against LGBTQ rights in the 2010s. Today I’m not particularly worried about Republicans’ policy preferences. Today I’m worried about the survival of our democracy.”
In 1968, Paul Simon wrote his song America, as he hitchhiked across the US with his friend Kathy: “’Kathy, I’m lost,’ I said, though I knew she was sleeping/ I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why/ Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike/ They’ve all come to look for America/ All come to look for America/ All come to look for America.”
Tuesday’s vote will be about finding — or losing — America.
Mattoo, one of India’s most eminent commentators on international politics and Indian foreign policy, is Professor at the School of International Studies in JNU, and Honorary Professor at the University of Melbourne. He is a former Visiting Professor at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana.
President Joe Biden. (AP) 
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