Midterm 2026 Musings 11.9.26

I am relieved. I am also very proud of my fellow Americans. The 2026 mid-terms were historical. Not since the mid-term elections of 1974 have both houses of congress swung so far from one party in power to another, making it the biggest popular vote rebuke since the post-Watergate era.  Historically, aspiring authoritarians often use legislative elections to cement their power and to further undermine democracy. In 2026, the American people spoke and refused to allow Mr. Trump to do so. The system held. The repudiation was so broad that it overcame America’s political polarization and culture wars, with Republicans losing races even in traditionally deep-red places, including Kansas, Kentucky, Iowa, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas. They lost because many independents and even Republicans consider Mr. Trump’s second term to be a failure. In an era of grubby corruption under a president who reveled in wanton cruelty, Americans chose a new path, a path of democracy and decency.

We should never take democracy and effective governance for granted. I was reminded of this when my son Davis and I walked the Via Francigena in Italy this summer.  During our pilgrimage towards Rome, we stopped in the city of Siena.  Just off the main square, known as the Palazzo Pubblico, is city hall. This building holds one of the most important frescos painted in the Middle Ages. Known as the Allegory of Good and Bad Government, it was painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in 1339. The fresco covers three walls of one of the large rooms in the building, known as “Hall of the Nine”.

At the time of the painting, Siena was then a republic run by the “Nine,” a council of merchants and bankers who held power from 1287 to 1355. Because the Nine met in this room, they had the frescoes painted as a constant reminder to them, and a piece of political messaging to visitors: govern justly and for the common good, and the city thrives. Govern selfishly and it falls apart. Inscriptions in Italian on the fresco spell out the moral so any literate citizen could read it. The fresco is as relevant today as it was in the 14^th century as the past two years have demonstrated. We have seen our executive and legislative branches not govern justly or for the common good.

The North wall fresco is known as Good Government with an image showing harmony binding the community together. The East wall fresco is known as Effects of Good Government with a busy, prosperous Siena, with merchants, builders and dancers in the streets. It flows into a countryside full of farmers and travelers. This is one of the first true landscapes in European painting since antiquity. The West wall fresco is known as Bad Government and shows Tyranny as a horned, demonic creature surrounded by vices such as Avarice, Pride, Cruelty, Fraud and War. Justice lies bound at the creature’s feet with the city beside him is in ruins, plagued by violence.

The fresco is now seen as one of the most important secular artworks of the Middle Ages. Siena’s republican government saw the fresco as a statement of its political ideals. These ideals drew on Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, especially the idea that rulers should serve the common good. Our country was founded on those same ideals.  Lorenzetti most likely died in the Black Death of 1348.  The Black Death killed almost half of the population of the city, and it never fully recovered, leading to factional fighting and high taxes, which caused the Nine to fall from power a few years later. As a backdrop, Italian city-states of this period were often torn by factional fighting, and many fell to single strongmen (signori). Unfortunately, Siena fell to the same fate. Divide and conquer is nothing new.

Before Davis and I left the building, he bought me a 1,000-piece puzzle that was a copy of a part of the East Wall containing the fresco Effects of Good Government.  Believe it or not, I started that puzzle back in July after I returned later that summer from the Republic of Georgia.  And it sat partly completed until November 2^nd, the day before the mid-terms. One of the main reasons it sat there unfinished was because it was so darn hard to piece together. There is only one other 1,000-piece puzzle that I have ever completed that was more difficult.

But as the mid-terms were approaching, I felt compelled to finish it.  It was almost as if by completing it before the election, that act would somehow impact the election results.  Like the puzzle, putting a democracy together and keeping it together is difficult. It takes lots of focus and mental stamina. Because I felt like we had lived under bad government for the past two years that included Avarice, Pride, Cruelty, Fraud and War, I wanted us to pivot to good government, with politicians serving the common good and not enriching themselves and their wealthy cronies.  So, I finished it. And it may be a while before I pull the pieces apart and put the puzzle away. I will never, ever take for granted that a good democracy should stand for the common good.

When the current holder of the White House ran for president, he ran against a party who used its power to tell people how to think and speak. I remember going to my doctor’s office and filling out a form to update your information. One of the questions was how you wanted to be identified – he or she or we/they. I laughed out loud. And then I got mad. People, this is ludicrous. And most Americans think so. Some people complain that medicine does not have the proper protocols for women because the medical profession does not recognize that women’s bodies are different than men’s bodies. So, how do you treat a person who identifies as we/they? I have yet to read a recent novel that identifies its main protagonists as we/they. It does not work. 

The previous party in power also divided us by promoting “identity politics”, literally launching culture wars. I was in favor of getting rid of the civil war statues in Richmond, Virgina. We have no business hero worshiping people who tried to divide out country. However, when a statue of Teddy Roosevelt was removed from the Museum of Natural History in NYC, I was livid. First, of all, that museum would not exist if it were not for TR and his family. And although TR was a conservative and a product of his time and class, he changed to become much more progressive later in his political career, championing women’s suffrage more aggressively and any other prominent politician during his time. His opinions on blacks and native Americans also evolved. TR was such a champion of the common man and the common good that he was called a “traitor to his class” by the wealthy oligarchs of the period. This is what we want – politicians who, when confronted with social injustice and unfair economic disparities, to respond with pragmatic solutions. TR was such a leader, as was Abraham Lincoln, whose views on slavery evolved and changed. So, when Portland, Oregon removed statues of both TR and Lincoln, that was the last straw for many Americans.

The democrats also did not face the realities of the effects of globalization, high federal spending and open borders on everyday working Americans. Those policies were not serving the common good. Many democrats and liberals also had the habit of pointing out everything that was wrong with America and promoting what has become known as wokeism.  The most effective ad of the 2024 campaign was “Harris stands for they/them. Trump stands for You.” They just went too far.

So, the Trump slogan of Make America Great Again (“MAGA”) resonated with lots of people. America is already great. We do not need Trump’s help to make America great again. But because the Democrats were seen as not respecting American values, Trump was able to harness the frustration that many Americans felt and rode that anger into office.  It did not hurt that the Democrats put forth an “anointed” candidate that did not even have to go through election primaries or the normal convention nomination process to become the Democratic party presidential candidate. So, not only did the Democratic party come across as divisive and anti-American but were also seen as hypocrites.

So, Trump rode into office promising to lower federal spending, lower inflation, stop the corruption in Washington, and stop illegal immigration. All of us wanted that. Instead, he ballooned the Federal deficit while taking away money from important Federal Research Programs. One of the things that does make America great is that we have always attracted global intellectual talent including the best and brightest scientists in the world. Because of Trump’s policies, the United States is now losing that intellectual capital at an alarming rate to other countries. WE are losing our Greatness! The current White House administration added fuel to inflation by unilaterally imposing nonsensical tariffs and unilaterally getting the United States into a “war of choice” that has been a total disaster.  This war has accomplished nothing other than depleting our country of its arsenal of weapons, driving up gasoline prices at home for Americans, and harming our relations with our allies in the region. And oh yes, in case you have not heard this, due to the war American oil companies are making record profits while the average American is suffering. In another foreign policy disaster, Trump is enabling Russia, a totalitarian government, at the expense of Ukraine, a democratically elected government.

This administration’s failures do not stop there. In stopping illegal immigration, it also stopped legal immigration. Like his policy on tariffs, he chooses to use an axe where he should be using a knife. There are only so many times that a person can sit in their living room and see people armored up and weaponed up wearing masks harassing decent people and even killing them. Many Latinos who came here legally voted for Trump two years ago.  During the mid-terms Trump lost most of those voters by double digits. Latinos, like many Americans, have realized that Trump was playing them for chumps, using the office of President to enrich himself and his family at their expense. Most political analysts agree that the Presidency has never seen this much corruption and self-dealing. 

Like the election of 2020, Trump is defiant, even in defeat – not willing to take responsibility for any failure. He rejected the notion that the Republicans’ huge double-digit losses was a rebuke of his presidency. “It was a point in time, and I wasn’t on the ballot.” What makes this so comical is that he spent the last month leading up to the election begging voters to pretend that he was on the ballot. And guess what? The voters listened and voted. Trump claimed he kept more promises to American voters than he made. Like so many things he has said, that’s a lie, and voters punished him and his party for it.  As President he even went to extraordinary lengths to put “his candidates” on ballots by intervening in his party’s primaries, leaving Republicans with a set of unusually weak candidates. What makes this so ironic is that he made the same mistake with those candidates that the Democrats made when they anointed their presidential candidate in 2024. Of the five republican candidates that were on the ballot because of his intervention, all but one lost. They were weak candidates. Without his intervention and with stronger candidates, the Republicans probably would have won more of those races.

President Trump had re-entered the White House with advantages he lacked in his first term: a victory in the popular vote, a cadre of aides eager to expand his authority, a Republican majority in both houses, and cultural currency that had NFL players doing the “Trump dance” in the end zone. But instead of making America even better, Trump chose to spend the last two years trying to subvert American democracy and enriching himself.  Rarely in American politics has a president traded away so much political support so quickly.

The Republicans controlled congress did the same thing. I think the founders of the United States would be hugely disappointed that so many members of the legislative branch have ceded so much power to the executive branch, which has filled that vacuum with corruption and assaults on the rule of law, even undermining the fundamental right to vote. John Adams, who insisted that a republic could not function without virtuous leaders, would be appalled at the prevailing vulgarity and incompetence in both the executive and legislative branches during the past two years. The current congress accomplished almost nothing, other than passing the Big Beautiful Bill, which has ballooned our Federal Budget deficit.

By proving loyal to Trump and a traitor to the branch of the government they were supposed to support the legislative branch traded away their political support. This congress failed to check the President by abdicating its responsibilities. If the most recent speaker of the House was judged on how he performed the core job of protecting the House’s independence and authority over its enumerated powers, then no speaker has done more than Johnson, our most recent speaker, to subvert the constitutional and civic purpose of that vital institution. The readiness of Johnson to subordinate the will of American voters to Trump’s ambitions to overturn the 2020 election may have helped Johnson become speaker in 2023, and it foreshadowed his incompetence after Trump’s return to office.  Creating a fiscally responsible federal budget, power over tariffs, declarations of war, and oversight of the executive branch are core responsibilities of Congress. They failed miserably in all of these. The Republicans in congress deserved to be voted out of office.

So, where do we go from here? I ask this question because I plan to go back to this essay before the 2028 election so that I will remember why the 2026 election cycle was so historic. And without this history, memories of this election cycle may be influenced by what Democrats do with their power instead of the election itself. For example, Vice President Vance is more like Trump than Trump – he is transactional and an opportunist. Leading up the election, he constantly supported the War with Iran. Now that the people have spoken, he sent out a 600-word essay the day after the election condemning the war. Remember his behavior during the past two-years when he runs for office in 2028. 

What is the rest of the world thinking after this election and what does it portend?  I think our European allies are thinking what most of us are thinking – happy with the results of the election but are cautious as to what it might mean. In one phrase, they are “cautiously optimistic.”

Democrats won an historic midterm election victory on November 3, 2026. They again have real legislative power. What will they do with this power? They need to remember that crafting a fiscally responsible federal budget, creating a responsible tariffs structure, ending a needless war, and oversight of the executive branch are core responsibilities of Congress. The question now is what lessons Democrats will take from their triumph?  Or will they return to the same mistakes of the Biden era that cost them so dearly in 2024.  Make no mistake, this was a repudiation of Trump, not an endorsement of Democrats. Voters weren’t endorsing the Democratic Party, which stands at a 29% approval in the latest NBC poll, well below the 38% approval rating for the Republican Party. So, voters are not embracing a Democratic policy agenda, since the party didn’t offer one.  

For Democrats, winning was the easy part. Trump’s actions over the past two years made an ani-Trump campaign a winning strategy. Trump made it obvious that he really did not care about the average American or the common good. Now comes the hard part – creating a legislative agenda that addresses the needs of the average American. Memories of this election cycle will not be shaped by the election itself, but by what Democrats do with their power. And most people would agree that they made a mess of their recent opportunities, as the current unfavorable 29% approval rating suggests. 

One recent article from a liberal leaning publication had the following headline, “Trump, Trumpism, and MAGA are dead!”  I disagree. I hope the House of Representatives will go back to protecting its independence and exercising its authority using its enumerated powers. Trump himself may be a lame duck with a congress that will now take its oversight of the executive branch seriously. But the frustrations, sentiments, and beliefs that put Trump into office remain. MAGA is not that movement. It, like Trump, is a product that movement. There are so many people in my community and elsewhere who do not like Trump, but who voted for him because they thought he would do the things he promised he would do.  He and the Republican Congress violated that trust. But make no mistake, the infinitely small acts of individual will by the American people that created the movement which created MAGA is alive and well. Democrats ignore that at their own peril.

We can often take away valuable insights when we study history or read important novels that are as relevant today as when they were written. Take Tolstoy’s War and Peace, one of the greatest novels ever written, as an example. It tackles a very important question. Are historical events the result of the actions of “great men” or do those men just ride a movement that would have produced those historical events or something similar without them?  Tolstoy develops this idea in the novel through two primary characters. In the story itself, Kutuzov, the Russian general, puts the idea into practice. He wins by sensing the national mood and not getting in its way, while Napoleon mistakenly thinks he’s in control. In Volume 3, Part I, Chapter 1 Tolstoy muses on the causes of the 1812 invasion. He writes that “a king is history’s slave,” meaning Napoleon was never as free as he believed. In that same volume he argues that historians must “integrate” the infinitely small acts of individual will and not focus on a few heroes. And finally, towards the end of the novel he argues that Russia’s partisan resistance, not military genius, decided the campaign.

But the fullest treatment of his argument is found in the Epilogue, Part Two, a standalone philosophical essay at the very end of the novel. In it Tolstoy asks what power is and what moves nations. His answer is that “great men” like Napoleon don’t cause events. History comes from the combined wills of countless ordinary people, and the leaders only seem to direct a movement they’re carried along by. Admirers of Napoleon would argue that his power was based “on his virtue and genius”, while his detractors would say that his power was based on his “trickery and deception of the people”. Tolstoy then argues that historians of this class, by mutually destroying one another’s positions, destroy the understanding of the true forces that produce events, and furnish no reply to history’s essential question.

If the Democratic Party is wise and willing to look in the mirror, they would realize that they helped put Trump into office because they failed to identify that a powerful counter-movement was developing that did not like what the Democratic Party was offering – identity politics, over-reaching government, more entitlements, no restraint on immigration – especially illegal immigration, negativity about America and its history, and a cancel culture depicted our past great leaders as villains and made heroes of people who wanted to play the “victim.” That is not the America that most Americans want.

Let’s take the “Defund Police Departments” movement as another example of misplaced anger. The average American in the street does not want smaller police departments. Groups that want to defund police departments or reduce the size of police forces do not realize that most European cities have more police officers per capital than American cities. Berlin has more than twice an many police officers per capital than Los Angeles. When there are more police officers per capita, they can “be in community” more often. They are therefore seen as an integral part of that community.  In countries where police forces are smaller, police use more forceful or aggressive tactics because they feel the need to do so to mitigate crime. I point this out not to support police brutality. It is meant to expose a wrong solution for a problem.

It is understandable for persons on both sides of the aisle to desire easy answers. I believe many Americans, even many Democrats, feel that too many liberals want to spend far too much money to create equal outcomes, when equal outcomes are impossible. Each of us is born with unique abilities.  And people who work hard and smart and who take personal responsibility should be rewarded. That is the American way. Ask most immigrants and they would agree.

There are three things that I think Americans want from this election. They want Congress to do its job and check the powers of the President, and if there has been corruption and wrongdoing, expose it. But do not go on a witch hunt. Second, pass good legislation. If Trump vetoes it, so be it.  If it is good legislation and both houses pass the bill with a 2/3 majority, the veto is overridden. If the Republicans in congress fail to help the Democrats pass good legislation by remaining loyal to Trump, it will make it that much more difficult for Republicans to win the next national election.

Sometimes party members have recognized that fealty to a leader or to the party is wrong. During the early 1970’s – one of those periods of disruption – we had Watergate. As damning evidence accumulated against Nixon, members of President Richard Nixon’s own party concluded that their obligation to the Constitution was greater than their obligation to Nixon or the Republican Party. So, in August 1974, Republican congressional leaders went to the White House and told Nixon that his support in Congress had collapsed. Nixon announced his resignation the next day. Would it not be great if members of either party had the guts to stand up to party leadership when party leadership is wrong? The Democrats failed at this in 2024, and the Republicans failed at this for the past two years.

Good future legislation should include ways to decrease our Federal Deficit, improve the lives of regular Americans by doing things to tame inflation including getting rid of meaningless tariffs and ending a senseless war with Iran. I would also include ways to make housing and healthcare more affordable. Congress recently had bipartisan support on a recent housing bill that would make housing more affordable. However, Trump vetoed it because Congress, in one of the few moments it stood up to Trump, refused to pass the “Election Reforms” that Trump desired. Doing so would have inserted the Federal Government into the election process, allowing the current White House administration to influence the mid-term elections. Thank goodness that did not happen.

Good legislation would also include a pragmatic and fair immigration policy, rewarding those who want to come to this country legally. Because most Americans now believe that the system is rigged, we need to stop subsidizing corporations and the wealthy at the expense of regular working people. Teddy Roosevelt would have taken on corporations like Meta and Google and broken them up. These companies have too much power and influence on our politics, just like large corporations had during the “Gilded Age.”

I do not know how the next two years will turn out, but I believe we are in for another period of disruption for our country. We have been through these before. They include the 1770s to the 1780’s, the 1830’s to the 1840’s leading to the Civil War, the 1890’s to the early 1900’s, a period in which Teddy Roosevelt was smart enough to “sense the national mood and not get in its way, and the 1960’s to the early 1970’s, which produced the Vietnam War and Watergate.  We are more than due for another disruption. 

We have come out of each of these trials as a stronger republic and democracy. This time around, I think it really began with the Pandemic and the election of 2020, which resulted in rioting and protests, which were not nearly as bad as what we had in the 1960’s – just giving some context. In the Gilded Age of the late 1890’s, we had lots of problems brought on by unregulated corporations.  Our current corporate greed is not nearly as bad as back then – again, some context. This time around, artificial intelligence will exacerbate some of our current problems. I think we will navigate it. But it will be difficult and disruptive.

Thomas Jefferson said that maintaining a democracy would be difficult, an active exercise that would simultaneously try to honor our individual freedoms (what each of us wants) and our collective freedoms (what we all need).  Believe me, I do not like to pay higher taxes. I think that is what most of us want. That said, I think our current tax system is unfair. And the only way we are going to be able to create a common good is to raise taxes on the wealthy. That is what we need. However, Americans will support higher taxes only if the money is spent responsibly.

Dwight Eisenhower, who knew better than most the terrible cost of war, reminded us in his farewell address that only “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” could preserve liberty and security.  I think we now have an alert and somewhat knowledgeable citizenry.  I think the past election proved it. As I said in my opening remarks, I am proud of my fellow Americans.

And I like what Ken Burns recently said. “We have come back from crises before. We were more divided than we are today during the Revolution, the Civil War, Reconstruction and Vietnam. For 250 years, our country has prevailed in fits and starts, forging achievements, however imperfect, related to race and equality in American life.” Let us not allow our criticisms of our great nation lead to forgetting how far we have come in creating greater opportunity and equality.

It is we who are empowered to check our chief executive — and the candidates running for Congress, who either have sworn an oath to the Constitution or hope to do so. And if they are not prepared to honor their oath to uphold our constitution, that should matter enormously to anyone and everyone “who values the idea of us— the idea of America.” The idea that we as a nation can be built on shared principles instead of shared blood, religion, or ancestry. The idea that each of us have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  And finally, that governments get their legitimate power from the consent of the governed. This past election was about the people.

And the people spoke…