Going in to Tuesday’s midterm elections, forecasts were so grim for the Republicans that poll watchers started trading a kind of knowing joke: that the results would either mean the end of the Trump era, or the end of the polling profession.
asserted
results → go → profession
Amid those sorts of predictions, any Republican victories would have seemed like a minor miracle.
asserted
victories → seem → miracle
The expectation was that Democrats would have a blowout; Republicans, counting on the final tally to be a bit more mixed, would therefore almost certainly have the freedom to claim that they’d done better than anyone had thought they would.
uncertain
they → have → freedom
It will be difficult to credit those spins today.
asserted
It → credit → spins
The electorate issued the president a message of dissatisfaction with the second Trump term, and voted decisively to curb his power.
asserted
electorate → issue → power
Now, with a Senate majority, Democrats will be able to investigate the president and his cabinet members, draw public attention to their own agenda items, assert Congress’s constitutional prerogatives, and block Republican judicial appointments.
asserted
Democrats → investigate → appointments
In the coming days and weeks, Trump will alternately say that the Republican losses were fake – the result of fraud by a nefarious but ill-defined conspiracy of Democrats and illegal immigrants – and that they were real, but somebody else’s fault.
asserted
they → come → Democrats
His administration has signaled over the past weeks that it could make efforts to contest the certification of especially close Senate races, notably Alaska.
uncertain
it → signal → races
But the wind may have gone out of the sails of that plan for now: for what it’s worth, which isn’t much, Trump told the New York Times on Tuesday night that he would accept the results of the midterms.
uncertain
he → go → midterms
What’s certain is that he will rail into microphones and complain in all caps on social media.
asserted
he → ’ → media
But it is not likely that any of that will go anywhere.
asserted
any → go → that
Because Tuesday night – almost exactly 10 years after he won the presidency in an upset victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016 – the Trump era effectively came to an end.
asserted
era → win → end
The next two years will look nothing like the previous two.
asserted
years → look → two
In the first several months after his return to power, when he controlled a unified government and was said to have won a restoration in 2024 on the heels of widespread cultural discontent and anti-“woke” sentiment, Donald Trump seemed momentarily as if he might succeed in his efforts to consolidate an authoritarian regime in America.
uncertain
he → control → America
He purged the federal bureaucracy, eliminating hundreds of jobs and stuffing thousands more with his loyalists and incompetent cronies.
asserted
He → purge → loyalists
He imposed his will and social agenda on non-governmental institutions, from large tech companies to major universities, which complied in part because they feared retaliation from a strong Trump regime if they refused.
asserted
they → impose → regime
He snatched the power of the purse away from Congress like a thief yanking a pocketbook away from an old lady, and reappropriated taxpayer money as he saw fit, disregarding the intentions of the people’s elected representatives.
And he did all this – he was able to do all this – because he seemed powerful, and his opposition seemed weak.
asserted
opposition → snatch → this
For the first year of his second term, he bet that he could get people to obey him because he could threaten consequences for refusal, and because the Democrats could not credibly threaten consequences for complicity.
uncertain
Democrats → bet → complicity
That credibility has flipped.
asserted
credibility → flip → ?
Donald Trump’s re-election in 2024 seems, now, less like a broad cultural realignment and more like a product of material factors, namely inflation.
asserted
election → seem → factors
Those same material factors have come back to bite Republicans now, as staggering gas prices, consumer disempowerment, persistent unemployment, and visible, egregious inequality outrage voters.
asserted
prices → come → voters
Donald Trump, meanwhile, seemed indifferent, if not oblivious, to these concerns – that is, when he was not actively making them worse.
asserted
them → seem → concerns
His reckless and needless war on Iran is broadly blamed – largely correctly – for driving up gas prices.
asserted
war → blame → prices
Meanwhile, Trump busied himself by draping large banners of his own face over federal buildings, remodeling the White House in gold, and making bizarre diatribes on rally stages about male politicians’ backsides.
asserted
Trump → busy → backsides
He seems frivolous and out of touch, like Marie Antoinette in a bad toupee.
asserted
He → seem → toupee
Donald Trump will enter 2027 with a hostile Congress, noticeably diminished cognitive power and physical stamina, a cratering approval rating, and a term limit.
asserted
Trump → enter → Congress
Moreover, he will enter the new year with a fractured coalition: his decision to pursue a war with Iran has split his inner circle and destroyed his credibility with the Republican rank-and-file for whom his “no new wars” pledge in 2016 had signaled a break with the neoconservative establishment.
Ambitious Republicans – younger Republicans – will sense blood in the water.
asserted
Republicans → enter → water
They will begin to turn on him in an effort to shore up their own prospects; he will rage at their betrayal and rally his base against them, like some sort of stupid King Lear.
asserted
he → begin → Lear
But his efforts to crown kings and exact revenge may be severely diminished after tonight.
uncertain
efforts → crown → tonight
Trump’s strength was always the hold he seemed to have over the Republican base, the degree to which his charisma could compel voters to follow him anywhere.
uncertain
charisma → seem → him
If the margins of the Democratic victories on Tuesday night are any indication, they are not following him anymore.
asserted
they → follow → him
The Aporia
