America has reminded it takes more than anger to govern

The Indian Express · Amitabh Mattoo · 2026-11-05 11:22 UTC

Trumpism didn't die this week, but the midterm results ended the myth that it cannot lose

Every US president learns an unfortunate truth at some point. You get elected on anger and you will eventually be judged on frustration. Tuesday was the day Donald Trump learnt this. Democrats flipped seven Republican Senate seats and swept both houses of Congress. Susan Collins lost her seat in Maine after almost 30 years. In Texas, James Talarico won a Senate seat that had not been held by a Democrat in 32 years. A seemingly impregnable fortress has been breached.

Consider the irony. Trump survived two impeachments and four indictments. Each one reinforced his supporters’ belief that the system was stacked against them. What finally checked Trump was one of the simplest ideas the founding fathers created. A fixed calendar and a routine election. An election every two years to renew Congress. Trumpism despises institutions. And it was defeated by one. No manner of gerrymandering could help.

There is a sense of déjà vu about mid-term elections. In the 1994 midterms, Newt Gingrich humbled Clinton. In 2006, three years after invading Iraq, Bush lost the House and the Senate. Obama called the 2010 midterms a “shellacking”. But this year is dramatically different from the routine swing of the pendulum. This is an indictment of the promise of Trumpism: That if you trust a strong man, he will lower prices at home and keep you safe abroad. Two years later, he has done neither.

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