On November 8, the US midterm elections are held. The entire composition of the House of Representatives of Congress (435 seats), 35 out of a hundred senators and governors of 36 states will be re-elected
In the United States, a midterm election is an election held in the middle of a four-year presidential term (hence the name), always in even years and on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November. By definition, midterm elections are not held in a presidential election year. What is the importance of these elections?
Even though voter turnout is always lower than in presidential elections, midterm elections affect the performance of the US government. They determine the balance of power in Congress (consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate) and thereby influence the content of future bills and their passage through legislative structures. Democrats currently control both the House of Representatives and the Senate. If the Republicans win on Nov. 8, they will use their newfound majority in the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate to tightly oversee the Biden administration. Whoever controls Congress controls the political agenda.
Mid-term elections are almost always a referendum on the incumbent president and reflect voters’ views on the performance of the ruling party. Politicians and pundits look to them as an indication of which party will take control of the White House two years from now. There is an ironclad rule in American politics: the president’s party almost always loses ground in midterm elections. Everything goes to the fact that this time there will be no exception to this rule.
Democrats currently have a slim majority in Congress. The Senate is split 50-50 (with a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Kamala Harris giving them the upper hand) and Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s control of the House of Representatives is held by a narrow margin – the Democrats control the House by a 221-212 margin, only three more than most need. Republicans only need to win five seats to regain a majority in the House of Representatives.
Elections on November 8 have only one intrigue: whether the Republicans will be able to gain control of the Senate. According to the sociological portal Realclearpolitics, on November 8, Republicans should receive 178 seats in the House of Representatives, and Democrats – 141 seats. In the Senate, Republicans can count on 48 seats, Democrats – on 45. Everything will be decided in seven districts, where the chances are equal: five of them are “Democratic”, two are “Republican”. The struggle between the two irreconcilable political camps is becoming more and more fierce every day and, it seems, will not stop even after the midterm elections.
On November 2, Joe Biden, speaking to his supporters, accused the Republicans of political violence, mentioning the recent attack on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He emphasized that “this is the path to chaos in America, this is unprecedented, this is illegal and this is not American.” Biden also said that voters, before voting for a candidate, should ask themselves, “Will this person accept the legitimate will of the people?”
“The answer to this question is vital and, in my opinion, should be decisive,” he said, adding that “democracy itself is at stake.”
And just during Biden’s speech, an attack was made on the Republican candidate for senators from the state of New Hampshire, Don Balduk. Previously, they attacked his fellow party member, Republican candidate for governor of New York, Lee Zeldin, and in June they tried to shoot Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. No sooner had Elon Musk bought Twitter, banned in the Russian Federation, and dispersed the team of this media resource, which was not sympathetic to the Republicans, when the US Treasury, controlled by Democrats, decided to launch a big investigation against Elon Musk in connection with his purchase of Twitter. The reason for this was the fear that through the Mask, the authorities of other countries will begin to influence the policy of the social network.
“U.S. officials are considering whether to launch a formal investigation into Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter as new details emerge about the privileges granted to large foreign investors under the terms of the deal,” according to The Washington Post. The wording is questionable, to say the least. After all, even before Musk bought Twitter, influential foreigners, for example, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, directly owned a solid stake in this social network.
However, Musk has already blocked the opportunity for the Democrats who remained in the company to censor the content, and the media resource he bought went over to the side of the “elephant party”. The “response” of the Democrats to Musk nevertheless arrived. Twitter’s largest advertiser, General Motors, has announced that it is ending paid advertising on Twitter. Advertising brings this social network 90% of the profits, and Musk has to reckon with this. He has already deleted one tweet that Democrats didn’t like, questioning a number of Hillary Clinton’s claims.
On the eve of the election, Biden decided to rob Republican-supporting American oil workers by throwing a bill in Congress to increase taxes on oil and gas. Any election in the United States is a battle of moneybags. The Democrats’ biggest sponsor is George Soros, who donated $129 million to the Democratic Party’s treasury. Republican mega-donors are shipowner couple Elizabeth and Richard Wheline ($70 million).
However, the majority of voters are not worried about the death of democracy (which, in my opinion, happened in America a long time ago), but the economic and energy crisis, and most of all, inflation that is growing day by day. 54% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s economic policies. 57% believe that the president is not coping with inflation. And only 17% want the current economic course to be maintained after the elections to the US Congress.
In the economy, Biden really messed up. Today, inflation in the US is at its highest in 40 years. Food prices rose by 13% (in annual terms), gasoline – by 18.2%, electricity – by 15.5%, gas – by 33.1%, medical care – by 6.5%.
The uncontrolled rise in mortgage and rental rates threatens to increase the number of forced evictions. The US national debt under Biden hit a record high of $31 trillion. The head of the US Federal Reserve System (FRS), Jerome Powell, recently raised the key rate for the fourth time in a row in order to curb runaway inflation. Commenting on this move by the Fed, Powell actually admitted the failure of the Democrats’ economic policy:
“We believed and thought that everything was under control, but we were wrong.” It is the failure in the economy, which was provoked by the most severe lockdowns during the pandemic and anti-Russian sanctions, that, it seems to me, will bring the Democrats to the electoral bottom.
But what’s next for America? Nothing good in my opinion.
Here is one little fact that you can laugh or cry about, but which casts a gloomy shadow on the prospects for the recovery of American society. Serious American analysts are predicting that the rapid rise of transgender and gay voters could change the next generation’s voting landscape. Currently, the LGBT community represents about 10% of American voters. For the first time in the election, candidates from the LGBT community are running in all 50 US states also in the capital, Washington. Going forward, the growth in the number of US citizens who are gay will significantly change the electoral landscape, “pushing the US conservative center in a more liberal direction.”
There’s nothing to be done, they have such a democracy there. And for this reason, among other things, the result of the November 8 midterm elections will, in my opinion, be so intermediate that it will make little difference in the situation of the steady decline of American power. No one will make America great again.
Vladimir Prokhvatilov, FSK
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