The Repudiation of Trump

For the second time, the majority of the voters in the election this past Nov. 7 repudiated the party of Donald Trump, even more strongly than four years ago. As often happens in the United States, the vote count has been delayed and is still controversial. A week later (Nov. 15), it hasn’t even been finalized (the winners have yet to be named for nine seats in the House of Representatives and two in the Senate).* However, it is already clear that the majority (between 32 and 40) will go to the Democratic Party in the House and to the Republican Party in the Senate. In the popular vote, the Democrats beat the Republicans by 14.5 million in the election for the Senate and by 5.4 million for the House. If, as many analysts have argued, this election was a referendum on Trump, the repudiation of the president was clear. In 2016, he won the presidency with 2.9 million fewer votes than his opponent. Now, in 2018, he has increased his majority in the Senate, but with a party that got only 41 of every 100 valid votes cast, less than the opposition party got. These are among the idiosyncrasies of the model democracy of the U.S.

In my opinion, the most striking and promising thing about the so-called midterm election was the number of victories by younger candidates, especially women – 117, among them the first Muslim woman and the first Native American woman – and by representatives of minority ethnic, religious or sexual orientation identities. The new House of Representatives will be the most balanced in history in terms of gender and the most representative of the country’s diversity. Trump is set on denying this richness and is trying to suppress it. The vote in favor of a pluralistic and diverse House, multiethnic, devoted to various gods or to none, rich in different behavioral, political and social attitudes, constitutes an emphatic rejection of the image Trump has been trying to impose: uniform and standardized, robotic and vociferous.

It is the result of a resistance movement, a term previously reserved for clandestine opposition to occupation regimes. This movement has arisen since 2016 among Democrats and independents in response to the increasing frequency and extent of lying and actions harmful to the natural, social, political and policy environments by the ever more irresponsible Trump administration. (For a look at this remarkable political reaction, see “The Resistance Strikes Back,” in The New York Times, Nov. 10, 2018.) One example is the Sixth District in Georgia: prosperous, with a high level of education, Republican for decades, carried by Trump in 2016. This time, the Sixth District went for a Democratic candidate who is African-American and an advocate of gun control. “But the steady work of citizens who’ve been trying, over the last two years, to fight the civic nightmare of Trumpism bore fruit.” In brief, as of Wednesday, Nov. 14, the Democrats have gained 33 seats in the House for a majority of 30, and have lost one seat in the Senate, where the Republican majority is being increased to four, not counting the three independents who generally vote with the Democrats.*

Another aspect of Trump’s repudiation was expressed in the elections for governorships and state legislatures. These races were also influenced, and in some instances constrained, by local issues in the various states. In summary, of the offices in contested elections (in which neither of the two major parties had an unbeatable majority), the Democrats won seven governorships: Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and Wisconsin. At the time this article was written, two more races were still undecided: Georgia and Florida.** In these cases, the election process may continue for several weeks more; total recounts, or even runoff elections, may possibly be required. In Georgia, Stacey Abrams, with a clear chance to become the first female African-American governor, has refused to accept the apparent victory of her Republican opponent, Brian Kemp, who, as the current secretary of state of Georgia, oversaw the election process, and there is ample evidence that he manipulated it in his favor. A runoff election may be required.*** In Florida, there have been frequent election disputes. Last Monday [Nov. 12], Trump demanded that the recounts required by law be halted, as had happened by judicial order in the 2000 presidential election: blatant meddling in affairs that are not the business of the president. After all the votes are counted, the balance, which is currently tilting toward the Republican side, will be leveled to some degree, at a time when the 2020 presidential election is already on the horizon.

In an attempt to provide a comprehensive summary of the lessons of this election, David Axelrod wrote: “These Democrats didn’t get elected, by and large, to war with Trump. They got elected to try and get some positive things done on issues like health care and economic issues for their constituents.” Perhaps Axelrod is overlooking one fact: To make advances in health care, the economy and many other areas, it is indispensable to fight Trump and his policies.

*Editor’s note: As of publication, only two House races remain undecided. Democrats have gained 38 seats in the House of Representatives, and Republicans have gained two seats in the Senate.

**Editor’s note: The Republican candidate, Ron DeSantis, was certified the winner of Florida’s governor’s race on Nov. 20, after a recount.

***Translator’s note: On Nov. 16, Abrams acknowledged that Kemp would be the next governor of Georgia. However, she did announce plans for a “major federal lawsuit against the state of Georgia for the gross mismanagement of this election and to protect future elections from unconstitutional actions.”