Pay attention, One Nation: this is why the Republicans got smashed

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People all over the world desperately need politicians to actually deliver and fix complex problems — something extreme populists are incapable of. The post Pay attention, One…

The chief result of the US midterm elections is that Donald Trump and the Republicans, having promised to fix every grievance, resentment and discomfort that plagued Americans in 2024, have paid a steep, indeed historic price for actually making things worse.

Inflation has surged, the federal deficit and debt have soared, unemployment is up, manufacturing employment has declined, farmers can’t find workers due to the migration crackdown, Trump’s war on Mark Carney has hammered states bordering Canada, international tourism has slumped, and the trade deficit has gone up. The biggest driver of economic growth is the construction of data centres by giant tech companies, an industry cheered on by Trump that is viscerally despised by Americans, no matter what their politics.

Then there’s the new forever war against Iran that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gulled Trump into, the administration’s support for the Putin regime and its war against Ukraine, and the surge in infectious diseases like measles to multi-decade highs. It’s no wonder Americans have revolted against Trump and the Republicans — not the traditional GOP but a transformed party slavishly in his thrall — given they’ve controlled not only the presidency but also both houses of Congress.

At a time when populations globally desperately need the machinery of government to deliver complex things, the failures of the Trump administration further confirm something demonstrated during the pandemic: when people in power with no interest in actually governing for the community are called upon to do so, they find they can’t. More than 400,000 Americans dead from COVID demonstrated Trump’s failure; more than 200,000 dead Britons demonstrated the failures of Boris Johnson.

Johnson is now consigned to political history (although another, more buffoonish, replacement, Liz Truss, had a brief go and proved even less competent), but Trump returned.

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