Let’s agree that tomorrow, November 3rd, will be a red-letter date in the history of US democracy. Indeed, there is a powerful argument to be made that these midterms will be among the most consequential elections in US history. From a partisan standpoint, voting Democrats and many independents are clear on the need to change course. They understand that the current administration is out of control and that the ruling party in Congress is doing nothing to rein it in.
That said, however, it is important to
distinguish between documented developments and political interpretation when
it comes to demonstrating that these are no common, ordinary elections, and in
positing that they will, very likely, be the most consequential midterm
elections in the history of US democracy.
Let’s start with the fact that, next
Tuesday, we Americans will be electing the entire House of Representatives and
about a third of the Senate. That means that there are some 470 congressional
seats in play, and that we have a very real opportunity to change
something—indeed, to change everything. It’s up to us to either leave in
charge the same people who are calling the shots right now, or to trigger a
shake-up that will be felt at every level of American reality.
It isn’t necessary to do a minute study of
the multiple major opinion polls run over the last year to perceive that the
vast majority of Americans are not at all happy with the current state of
affairs, or with the forecast for how things will go over the next two years if
the present regime is permitted to remain on the disastrous course that it is now
following.
In the end, if the next two years are
just more of the same—with ordinary Americans falling through the cracks, the
rich getting richer, prices skyrocketing, and the country bent on a break-neck
run toward becoming the seat of a global authoritarian oligarchy—we will have
no one to blame but ourselves. Because, tomorrow, we have an opportunity to
kick over the checkerboard and start again from scratch.
So what is at stake?
The central issue in these elections
isn’t the choice between Republicans or Democrats—although that result is part
and parcel of the future outcome. In short, the choice, as I see it, is between
democracy and authoritarianism, because American authoritarianism is precisely
what the GOP is defending and is complicit in implementing. The central issue,
then, is whether American democracy will still be able to check presidential
power or not when the voting is through. At first glance, if things continue on
their current course, that question becomes moot, since while Republicans could
rein the nation’s rogue president in, abundant experience has shown us
unequivocally that the hijacked GOP won’t.
The why of that conundrum is a veritable
enigma, because it signifies that Republicans in Congress have voluntarily
surrendered their potentially enormous power to a despot, in some misguided
interpretation of party lines and loyalties—or perhaps because many of them
have very major vested interests in play that keep them from doing their job
for the sake of democracy, and for that of the ordinary Americans that they supposedly
represent—but, in practice, do not.
But, okay. That just means that it is
what it is, and unless we vote out the present rubber-stamp Congress, nothing
will change. Or rather, it will, but only by taking a turn for the
worse. Because it is also important to realize that the president now occupying
the White House is mentally ill—demonstrably and severely so—and as such, is
ruling on whim and impulse, with no one making move one to stop him, no matter
how utterly insane the action he takes might be. Just the fact that this is a
man with access to the nuclear codes is surely reason enough to stop coddling
him and start seriously limiting the power he wields.
Bottom line, if the GOP-majority
Congress were doing its job, President Donald Trump would have been halted in
his tracks the first time he thumbed his nose at the rule of law or decided
that the Constitution was immaterial when it came to his personal interests and
those of his family and friends. Under the American democratic system, the
presidency is, without a doubt, powerful. But it is not sovereign. Congress
controls (or at least should) legislation and appropriations, the judiciary
interprets the law, and the executive is, in a perfect democratic world,
constitutionally constrained by both.
That said, however, what has changed is
the integrity of the people in charge. Trump didn’t happen in a vacuum. Nor is
he more than a glaring symbol of a much, much broader corruption conspiracy.
Trump alone is not the problem. The problem is a Republican Party where
corruption is so rampant that its leadership is willing to forsake
centuries-old American traditions, the law, the Constitution, democratic
integrity and the people of the United States in order to maintain a despot in
power who is literally willing to let them get away with murder, because they
will return the favor in spades.
The American system, as the framers
conceived it, depends not simply on written rules but on public officials being
willing, and morally bound, to enforce them. And that is what has changed
dramatically under the current regime. If an unwillingness to play by the
traditional rules of American democracy were only being attempted by a
would-be despot, but the legislature would step in and stop him cold, the
solution would be simple. But that is not the case. In reality, neither the
president nor his ruling party is willing to enforce the rules.
On the contrary, the president breaks
the rules continuously, and the ruling party goes out of its way to justify and
support the president’s aggressive refusal to adhere to the law and to the
rules of democratic governance. For the first time in history—well, there was
another case, another Republican, but it was the GOP leadership itself that
stepped in and forced that president to resign—we are seeing a head of state who,
when told something he wants to do is illegal, says, virtually, “Ask me if I
give a crap.” And his ruling party is perfectly willing to take no for an
answer.
In short, the concern is this: That
under the Trump administration, checks and balances have become ineffective,
with the president treating institutional independence as an obstacle, and with
his congressional allies declining to push back and exercise their constitutionally
enormous power of oversight.
Although multiple appointments and virtual alliances between the regime and
the Supreme Court, have blunted the role that the highest court in the land has
often historically played in diluting the hegemony of presidential authority
and ruling party acquiescence to it, the lower courts are being increasingly
drawn into disputes over the limits of executive authority. As such, and until
an election (hopefully this one) shakes up the current regime, regular case law
and appeals courts have become the last bastion of democratic governance. But
even that last hill in the fight for democracy stands to be eliminated if
presidential authority is not checked in the outcome of these midterm
elections.
In point of fact, the Supreme Court has
already handed Donald Trump carte blanche to commit high crimes and misdemeanors
in office—something he clearly needed no help executing—by rendering him unindictable
as long as he is in office. This would have made little difference to the administrations
of the great majority of presidents that the US has had in the past, but for
Trump, it is virtual permission from the Supreme Court to break the law with
impunity, because that is the nature of his sociopathic personality. The lower courts, then, are currently the
only check that the president is forced to deal with. To summarize, he is a
convicted felon, and the congressional majority and the Supreme Court are,
essentially, his partners in crime.
The right outcome in the midterms—a
withering defeat for the Trump-hijacked GOP—would provide the only other viable
(and powerful) way of dealing with a rogue leader. A Congress firmly in the
hands of the opposition would be in a position to subpoena testimony, to demand
full access to public records, and to launch effective investigations into the
questionable and blatantly illegal actions of the current regime. And, upon
gathering unequivocal evidence, an opposition majority could take the legal
action that the Supreme Court won’t, and try the president for high crimes and
misdemeanors.
The message is clear. When Trump says
that if Democrats and independents win the election, he will be subjected to
impeachment, that’s not more Trumpian hyperbole. That is a statement of fact,
and a fact that, for the sake of democracy, the nation would do well to turn
into an uncompromising reality.
For now, there is a current concrete
example of how the courts are standing between the Trump GOP and the rights of
the people. This past weekend, the Reuters agency reported that a federal judge
had ordered the Justice Department to stop threatening election officials with
prosecution over their refusal to comply with federal demands concerning
voter-registration records. This ruling
defends the principle that, in the interest of fair elections, the presidency,
and, indeed, the federal government plays no role in organizing the national
elections. This is a matter of states’ rights and is an almost sacred principle
of democracy. Because if the incumbent president and his ruling party can take
control of elections, there is no way that those elections can be considered
free and fair.
Think of Russia, for instance. Despite
the fact that Russia has held presidential elections regularly (eight times) in
the three and a half decades since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991,
Vladimir Putin has managed to maintain an iron grip on power in that country
for a consecutive 25 out of those 35 years of the so-called Russian Federation.
Trump, clearly a Putin cheerleader, has, to a great extent, sought to use
Putin’s playbook in grabbing ever greater chunks of executive power.
Putin, for his part, has maintained
authoritarian power through a combination of institutional manipulation,
political repression and tight control over the elite and the media. Sound
familiar? That’s because it is.
Putin’s indifference to the Russian
Constitution and to term limits were his first tools for accumulating
dictational power. When constitutional term limits blocked him from serving
consecutive presidential terms, Putin made a deal for shared power with Dmitry
Medvedev, stepping into the prime minister’s slot from 2008 to 2012, while
Medvedev became a presidential placeholder, a move that still allowed Putin to
remain the Czar-like supreme leader of Russia.
In this sense, one might say that Trump
has proven even more ruthless than Putin, since, when he definitively lost the 2020 presidential election, he sought directly
to overthrow the government by mounting a violent popular insurrection designed
to stymie certification of the general election results that showed him to be a
clear loser.
Putin has also pushed through a
constitutional reform that extended presidential terms from four to six years,
and changed rules regarding successive terms. These modifications were designed
to guarantee that he may be able to remain in power through at least 2036. Simultaneously,
independent and serious political contenders have routinely been barred from
ballots, jailed, or exiled. Some have been shuttled off to gulags and/or
killed. Trump has sought to marginalize his rivals as well, by keeping them
tied up in frivolous yet expensive lawsuits, or by engaging in character
assassination with the complicity of the alt-right news media.
What Trump has not been able to do so
far is take tight control of the elections, but clearly not for lack of trying.
And this has been a mainstay of Putin’s iron-fisted power. Again, these
midterms are crucial in ensuring that the same cannot happen in the US, because
the GOP has shown itself to be perfectly willing to help Trump dominate the
electoral process.
Elections in Russia are tightly
orchestrated state spectacles where token opposition candidates are allowed merely
as a means of making a show of pluralism while guaranteeing a landslide victory
for Putin. As Americans, we need to be aware that, based on his behavior to
date, Trump would like nothing better than to be able to do precisely the same,
which is why he is pressing so hard to have control over the election process.
Putin has also systematically dismantled
government institutions that guarantee equality, fairness, and independent
regional governance subordinated to the judiciary. All of these are things that
Trump, in one way or another has done as well, whether by using DOGE and the
Justice Department to severely weaken oversight, or by threatening local
politicians with isolation, ostracism and primaries. Putin has also brought
national television and major media networks under direct state or loyalist
ownership—precisely the same method Trump has implemented to employ censorship
without making it obvious that that’s what he is doing.
Putin has also co-opted the national
security apparatus. Like Trump, he has done this by purging the military of
anyone who questions his authority or vision (such as it is). Trump’s naming of
Pete Hegseth to head the Department of Defense (which Trump and Hegseth refer
to as the War Department) has ensured
that anyone who might seriously question such fiascos as the Iran war are long
gone. And his conversion of ICE into a personal paramilitary is similar to the
repressive apparatus that former KGB officer Putin has built over the years to
do his bidding in repressing the opposition.
Anyway, the judge who handed down last
weekend’s ruling ordered the Trump regime to stop harassing local election
officials, concluded that the administration had overstepped its authority, and
restricted its ability to demand the removal or segregation of voters and
ballots. This is a documented judicial intervention, not just some partisan
accusation. And as such, it is a clear demonstration of the sort of direct
threats to US democracy that should be top of mind in tomorrow’s midterm
elections.
It also illustrates why independent
courts, congressional oversight, and proper election administration matter, and
makes it clear that, at least for now, certain constitutional checks can still
operate, even when other officials and institutions have been flagrantly prejudiced.
The Supreme Court deserves particular
scrutiny, but precision matters. The Court has a six-justice conservative
majority, including three justices appointed by Trump. Justices are not
formally members of political parties, however, and their constitutional
decisions should be evaluated individually rather than being automatically
attributed to Republican Party discipline.
Be that as it may, what many opposition
politicians are promising is eventual
Supreme Court reform legislation. And considering just how complicit the Court
has been in the implementation of Trump’s authoritarian agenda, it would appear
that serious consideration should be given to modification of how the Court is
appointed and structured, and to its vulnerability to partisan control. In my
own opinion, that reform should also consider the implementation of some form
of oversight to ensure that the Court is not subject to corruption.
In order to preserve the independence of
powers (which, at the moment, is of dubious validity) perhaps this kind of discretionary
investigatory power over Supreme Court justices could be exercised by the
Judicial Conference of the United States, the national policymaking body for
the federal courts, one of whose jobs it is to set the ethical standards for
federal law—which include the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. Because
at the moment, Supreme Court justices are basically answerable to no one,
when it comes to their ethical conduct. And while that may not have been a
major issue throughout much of American history, today, in the chaotic Era of
Trump, it clearly is.
This is all part of a much larger
question. Namely, whether the institutions established to constrain
presidential power are functioning independently and effectively. At present,
it is apparent that they are not, and this midterm election could go a long way
toward ensuring that they do in the future, as they did in the past, before the
advent of the MAGA era.
At a much more pedestrian level, Trump and the Republican Party made an unusually explicit series of commitments in their 2024 campaign platform. They promised to defeat inflation, quickly bring down prices, make America affordable again, protect workers, (sorry, I hope my outburst of bitter laughter didn’t startle you), create prosperity and return the country to peace through strength. These promises provide a legitimate standard by which to evaluate the Trump regime’s record.
To start with, try as it might (and, boy, has it tried) the regime cannot reasonably claim, by any stretch of the imagination, that it has defeated inflation. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, consumer prices have increased 3.7 percent over the twelve months ending in September 2026. In September alone, the CPI rose 0.6 percent. But much worse still, energy prices are up 20.4 percent year to date, and fuel prices which—let’s face it—affect everything, have increased by 34.2 percent. Within this context, food prices, which were already sky high, continue to rise.
And it is also important, when Trump
officials like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claim “core inflation is down,”
to realize that this is a fallacy. The fact is that a reduction in the inflation
rate doesn’t mean prices have backtracked to their previous (pre-Trump 2.0) levels.
Families continue to pay the cumulative increases of previous years, as well as
further inflation under Trump that has added greatly to that burden on already
tightly stretched family budgets.
Bottom line, if the GOP and Trump
promised to make everyday life more affordable, why are so many households
still struggling in a veritable death roll with housing, food, energy,
transportation and health-care costs? The answer is clear and points not to
circumstances beyond the regime’s control, but rather to specifically imposed
policies—crippling tariffs, an obscene war of choice in Iran, and draconian
cuts in benefits to finance tax breaks for billionaires—that have made life
ever more difficult and ever more expensive for tens of millions of ordinary
Americans.
Trump also promised that he would be the
President of Peace. He said not only that he would avoid new wars, but also vowed
to solve major international conflicts—like the Russian war against Ukraine and
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—on “Day One”. Despite the president’s
obsession with the Nobel Peace Prize and his hyperbolic claim of having “solved
eight wars”, there is no real evidence that he has been a successful
peace-maker anywhere in the world, and, on the contrary, he has taken arbitrary
military action against Venezuela, threatened and blockaded Cuba, threatened
the legitimate government of Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva, and launched a disastrous ongoing war against
Iran—a country that, despite its well-deserved reputation as a repressive, dictatorial,
terrorist state, was still sitting at the negotiating table when the US
arbitrarily and illegally attacked it, and, thus, involved the Americans in
what is shaping up as yet another forever-war in the Middle East.
Trump and the hijacked GOP also promised
to “restore American leadership in the world.” But Trump and company have
clearly demonstrated that they have no idea what global leadership is. They
apparently believe that it involves alienating the nation’s closest allies,
becoming bosom buddies with its most dangerous enemies, creating new enemies
around the world, and throwing everything but the kitchen sink at them until US
stockpiles are so low as to leave the country vulnerable to foreign attack, and,
out of something like toxic machismo, creating warring situations that are next
to impossible to get out of, and which have a devastating effect on the global
economy.
My usual advice is to vote, no matter
whom you vote for. But as for tomorrow, in these most historically major
midterms, I can do no less that to encourage you to vote as if our lives, our
nation, our democracy, and the world depended on it. Because they do! And this
is our chance to stop muttering our protests in the kitchen or in front of the
TV, and to make our displeasure heard—and heard to the very rafters of the
golden ballroom.
See you at the polls!
