More thoughts on the US midterms

The day after the midterm elections in the United States, I posted four brief responses on social media which I will expand upon here. These were directed at those cheering a Democratic victory in the two houses of Congress, but they might also benefit those recently in the grip of a personality cult that has taken over an established political party.

First, we should be pleased to see Donald Trump's evident narcissism and imperial tendencies reined in. Americans have long been caught between two political tendencies that have vied for their loyalties for more than two centuries. One of these is a civic republicanism with modest aspirations to self-government by a virtuous citizenry who are aware of their own limits and seek the welfare of their multiple communities. The other is an imperialism fuelling territorial expansion westwards across a continent and later into the Caribbean, Pacific, and beyond. The latter tendency does not lend itself well to democratic institutions carefully marked by constitutional constraints and is most compatible with personal rule by a chief executive acting within ill-defined limits. That Trump will now face opposition in Congress is a good thing, marking a victory (for now) of the civic republican tendency. One hopes that tuesday's election results will vindicate America's political institutions after several years of deliberate efforts to undermine them for reasons of personal vanity.

Is MAGA done for?

In the wake of tuesday's midterm elections in the United States, Christian Courier has published my initial thoughts on what happened that day: Is MAGA done for? "The Republicans took a beating for fostering a cult of personality, but the Democrats still have a lot of work to do to regain public trust." An excerpt:

Americans go to the polls every two years for what non-Americans might call a full parliamentary election. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs, and one third of the Senate is at stake. November’s midterm elections gave Democrats control of both chambers of Congress, as many had predicted. That President Donald Trump had put his own popularity on the line meant that Americans delivered a stunning rebuke to a man whose outsized ego and imperial pretensions had held much of the public in thrall for more than a decade. 

Read the entire article here.