By Nitya Chakraborty
The results of the U.S. midterm elections are going to have big impact not only on the current administration of President Donald Trump, but also on the latest political situation in Latin America, Europe and even in India. At global level, Trump’s big defeat is a boost to the forces in different parts of the world who have been fighting against authoritarianism of various hues. The U.S. voters verdict just within ten days of historic victory of Leftwing President Lula signals the coming of a new political mood in the continent to meet the challenge of the far right surge.
Latest results indicate that the Democrats have got about 55 seats in the Senate as against 45 by the Republicans meaning comfortable majority. In House of Representatives, out of 435 seats, the Democrats are expected to get more than 240 seats-much more than 218 seats needed for a majority. Thus this control of two houses in the Congress has given a big opportunity to the Democrats to put pressure on Trump to change his policies.
As per the U.S. constitution, Trump has veto powers. He can exercise that to push through some of his programmes ignoring the opinion of the Congress, but there is a limit. His politically diminished stature after November 3 elections, may not allow him to steamroll the Congress as he has been doing in the last two years since he took over on January 21, 2025. Trump has already mellowed after the unambiguous verdict against him. He told newsmen that he would be working with the Democrats in the Congress in the remaining two years of his term. His earlier campaign plank that the Democrats might fudge the polling figures, was missing. He accepted the verdict.
Trump is facing a piquant political situation. During the campaign, he told the voters that they should remember that he was the candidate in every ballot. He liked it to be called a referendum on him. Republicans also took that line. Democrats campaigned it as the referendum on Trump’s anti-people programme. Now after this disaster, there was no way he could evade responsibility for the defeat though he tried to be smart by saying that if I would have been the candidate, It would have been a landslide win.
But the Republican Party leaders are sulking. Their party candidates suffered unprecedented losses in their strongholds and especially in the constituencies which Trump visited most. For the first time in the last 94 years, a Democrat won a senate seat in Kansas with Adam Hamilton defeating Roger Marshall. Another big personal defeat for Trump was the victory of the Democratic candidate Abdul El Sayed in Michigan. Trump launched his usual Islamophobic tirade against Sayed, but the voters elected him convincingly.
Republicans are aghast that Trump’s handpicked candidates have mostly lost. In Texas, South Carolina, Trump campaigned intensely in favour of his chosen candidates. These are all traditional Republican strongholds and with President’s campaigning and endorsement, they are supposed to win handsomely. But in the November 3 elections, the conservative voters of the area switched to the Democrats stunning the Republican Party which always depends on Texas for seats in the Presidential elections. The trends in the Republican dominated states give ominous signal about what might happen during the Presidential elections in 2028.
As against the failure of the Trump endorsed candidates, Bernie sanders and his Left Democrats have scored big in the November 3 elections. Though the final figures are yet to come, DSA sources claim that out of 70 candidates endorsed by Sanders more than 40 have won.. These are all supporters of Sanders programme in favour of more facilities for the workers and the poor, cut in defence spending and end of war with Iran. With the latest surge in DSA numbers in the Democratic Party, the party establishment will be under intense pressure to further impart a pro people direction to the Democratic agenda in the Congress.
In both Latin America and Europe, there is a big optimism among the Left and liberals as the two pillars of far right Donald trump and Flavio Bolsonaro of Brazil have been defeated. Trump’s programme of regime change in Latin America has already got a jolt with the election of Lula as President in Brazil, but the support to the other far right parties in the Latin American region, may dwindle for the time being. Trump will be too busy in doing the fire fighting for being in effective power till November 2028 in the face of the resurgent Democrats control of the Congress.
As regards India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi must be worried at the results against Trump. Trump’s MAGA programme has some similarities with Narendra Modi’s own programme. The BJP outfits in USA including VHP and other Hindu organisations are close to Donald Trump. They share his Islamophobia. Many in the Democratic Parties identify Narendra Modi with Trump. In fact Bernie Sanders has named Modi as one of the far right leaders who are led by Trump. Sanders will now be more powerful in the Congress on the basis of his group of elected members. Indian embassy in Washington will have to lobby more with the Democrats to protect the Indian interests vis a vis USA. On Human Rights violations in India, Modi government will have to be prepared to face more criticism from the Congress and its committees in the coming year.
Indian PM will be meeting Trump twice this year. The first meeting will be in the middle of this month at Manila during ASEAN summit. Then in the middle of December, Indian PM will have a meeting with the U.S. President at G20 meeting in Miami, Florida. It will be of interest to see whether Modi can take advantage of the politically weakened stature of Trump to push through India-US trade deal by protecting the Indian concerns over U.S. interest in Indian agri foods market. (IPA Service)
