Midterms 2018 roundup

Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons

The Midterm elections are over. Americans have had their say for the first time since the 2016 Presidential election, electing members for the House of Representatives and the Senate. Pundits talk of blue or red waves, and experts speculate about the ramifications, but what is the state of things?

1.) The Democrats may have seen their best midterm gains since Watergate

It's not unusual for the incumbent party to lose seats in the House of Representatives in the midterms. The Democrats lost an eye-watering 63 seats in the 2010 midterms, something that undermined President Obama for the remainder of his first time. One of the many things that resulted from this gridlock was the debt ceiling crisis the following August, when the US ultimately lost its top-notch credit rating with one of the leading agencies. The Democrats lost another dozen seats in 2014, before gaining half a dozen in 2016. This time round, the Democrats may have gained at least 30 seats, which would be the biggest gain for them since 1974, the year President Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal.

The precise numbers won't be known for a while, but we know for sure that the Democrats won the popular vote in the House of Reps. This suggests the blue wave scenario came true.

2.) The Senate eludes Democrats, and may remain so for a little bit longer

The House of Reps, which are the US equivalent of a lower house, flipped to the Democrats, but the Senate, or upper house, remains under Repblican control. In fact, the Democrats lost 3 senate seats, in a Senate race that was among one of the hardest for them to fight in many long years. It sounds like a small amount, but given the size of the Senate, each seat has a bigger proportional significance. The Senate matters, as it will prove crucial in the selection of Supreme Court justices.

As we saw with the Kavanaugh nomination in recent weeks, the Senate ultimately plays the most important role. Why did the Senate vote play out the way it did this year? In large part, it was the timing. The Democrats had to defend 26 seats this time, compared to just 9 for the GOP. Very unlucky for the Democrats, in other words. Based on the timings for future votes, some have even remarked that the Senate could remain under Republican control until 2022.

3.) The economy didn't matter as much as people thought

The American economy has been growing continuously since the middle of 2009, when it emerged from the global financial crisis. Growth has been quite decent by post-GFC standards. The US economy's trend growth rate is probably around 1.5-2% or so, and the economy has enjoyed a growth spurt of around 2.5-3% under Trump. As a result of this buoyant economy, the official level of unemployment has dropped to 3.7% , a level not seen since 1969. Wage growth is picking up, to about 3.1% according to some metrics. Much of this success has been due to a tax cut introduced in December 2017.

The stock market is Trump's favourite barometer of success. It has been somewhat turbulent in 2018, but has managed to hit all-time highs on a number of trading sessions. The boom in stocks has generated massive sums of money like a money printing machine, and Trump is keen to boast this as a sign of better things to come. The awkward reality is that a small number of average Americans own stocks. The average worker in the US is still earning less than they did in 1978, in real terms. Trump fed off the discontent of Rust Belt communities to reach the White House in 2016. Now, he's fallen into the trap of taking all the credit for the irrational exuberance on Wall Street. Trump has taken credit for the boom. If the trade war with China does deliver a blow to growth, Trump will find himself having to explain the bust.

The Trump administration seems to have adopted the mantra of the Clinton era of the late 1990s (it's the economy, stupid) and seeks to trumpet any positive statistics for all their worth, but it risks ignoring other issues that voters actually care about. A case in point is this: in an exit poll on the eve of the the 2018 Midterm elections,  over 40% of voters cited healthcare as the most important motivation behind their vote. Only 21% thought the economy was a leading concern.

4.) Trump's relationship with the media is at rock-bottom

Over three years after Mr Trump descended that escalator in Trump Tower, a plethora of catchphrases and Orwellian terms have entered the public consciousness. "Fake news", "alternative facts", "the swamp" and "enemies of the people", to name a few. President Trump has had one of the most acrimonious relationships with the press, and it's unlikely to change anytime soon, as evidenced by this clip above.

When confronted by the press over his party's losses, Trump speculated about how division in Washington might actually benefit him more, as if the whole thing was some kind of calculated PR move than an actual expression of democracy. Behind closed doors, he is most likely frustrated by things not going his way, and his short temper, as evidenced by the spat with CNN's Jim Acosta and a few other journalists in the press conference reveals the insecurity he is probably sensing after this experience at the polls.

President Trump is in a unique position, as his Presidency is directly influenced and shaped by its own echo chamber, Fox News. Fox News has existed since the mid-1990s, and its drip-feeding of conspiracy theories and its dosage of neo-conservative commentary over the years has given it a sizeable fanbase, mostly among ageing white Americans. Fox News has an increasingly antagonistic relationship with its media rivals, and this is spilling over into the Presidency. Trump has unwavering faith in Fox News, and openly lambasts the rest of the media, or in his words, the "mainstream media".

Trump's alleged appetite for television has thrown up an intriguing theory, as suggested here. Could Trump's usual 6-9am daily burst of Twitter activity be related to the fact that the Fox News show "Fox & Friends" airs during that 3-hour slot?

5.) The GOP of Lincoln and Reagan is dead

An intriguing phenomenon has occurred in US politics since the 20th Century. Politics has undoubtedly become increasingly polarised, and much of this comes from the GOP drifting further to the right. As evidenced here, Republicans elected to the House rapidly became very conservative, while the Democrats have slowly become more liberal. As a result, an ever-widening gulf has merged in American politics. Some have fallen through the gaps, feeling a sense of political homelessness, as the party they spent most of their life working to build disintegrates and changes into something unrecognisable.

The late John McCain was a classical example of this. Ten years ago, he was the man the Republicans chose to lead them into the 2008 elections against Barack Obama. Within a decade, McCain was locked in a war of words with President Trump while dying from brain cancer. Trump had incensed many for suggesting McCain wasn't a war hero as he had been captured. In one of his final acts as a Senator, McCain sabotaged Trump's 2017 attempt to dismantle Obamacare. McCain went to the grave without an apology from Trump for his remarks.

Republican President Abraham Lincoln oversaw the abolition of slavery in the US. In the 1984 election, President Reagan campaigned for re-election under the slogan "morning in America", as the economy emerged from the era of stagflation in the 1970s. It used to be optimistic once. In contrast, Trump has painted a bleak picture of America, as we saw in his inauguration speech. Gone is the hopey-changey era. He focuses on the decay in society, talking of corruption, fomenting distrust of institutions including the media, and scare-mongering, by claiming that a rising tide of illegal migrants is threatening to burst across the borders at any moment. The so-called caravan serves as an example.

Dissent within the party is risky. The party's Senators and Representatives have more of less gone along with the programme so far. Ted Cruz, for example, got into a war of words with Trump during the GOP candidate primaries, but he is a loyal servant of the Trump cause now, at least in public. Voices of opposition have been microscopic needles in a haystack.

The party has fallen onto a default setting of promoting the idea of lower taxes and an overly-simplistic/traditional view of American society, rallying around Trump as the party's saviour. It's unclear what solid foundations will remain when he goes. The current administration's economic policies are certain to leave the US with a high debt burden with no plans to pay for it, and the party's social outlook ignores the reality that America is more diverse than ever before, but it doesn't intend to accommodate to other ways of thinking. This should be ringing alarm bells.