America has reminded it takes more than anger to govern

Trumpism didn't die this week, but the midterm results ended the myth that it cannot lose

Every US president learns an unfortunate truth at some point. You get elected on anger and you will eventually be judged on frustration. Tuesday was the day Donald Trump learnt this. Democrats flipped seven Republican Senate seats and swept both houses of Congress. Susan Collins lost her seat in Maine after almost 30 years. In Texas, James Talarico won a Senate seat that had not been held by a Democrat in 32 years. A seemingly impregnable fortress has been breached.

Consider the irony. Trump survived two impeachments and four indictments. Each one reinforced his supporters' belief that the system was stacked against them. What finally checked Trump was one of the simplest ideas the founding fathers created. A fixed calendar and a routine election. An election every two years to renew Congress. Trumpism despises institutions. And it was defeated by one. No manner of gerrymandering could help.

There is a sense of déjà vu about mid-term elections. In the 1994 midterms, Newt Gingrich humbled Clinton. In 2006, three years after invading Iraq, Bush lost the House and the Senate. Obama called the 2010 midterms a "shellacking". But this year is dramatically different from the routine swing of the pendulum. This is an indictment of the promise of Trumpism: That if you trust a strong man, he will lower prices at home and keep you safe abroad. Two years later, he has done neither.

Begin where most American voters began: The grocery bill. Inflation unites everyone, regardless of where you live or what you believe. Tariffs were supposed to help working people. They did nothing but raise the cost of goods. A tariff is just a tax. One that is not paid by China or Canada but by shoppers at their local supermarket in Ohio. A president elected by people angry about rising costs has raised the cost of living further.

Then there is the Iran war. Ending wars was one of Trump's most seductive promises. America is now at war with Iran, and Americans are paying for it at the petrol pump. Even Vice-President JD Vance is blaming the war for these losses. When a country goes to war, its people expect it to be short. Not forever.

Immigration brought Trump to power and has now cost him his majority. Immigration is a real problem, and liberals need to understand that. But raids by aggressive ICE teams are not the solution. In 2024 we saw Latino voters move towards the Republicans, and many suggested it was a permanent realignment, but they were never a bloc. Most Hispanics want immigration laws enforced, just not in the way they have been under Trump, and few will accept the public humiliation of their communities. Trump's genius was to turn cultural insecurity into political solidarity and used it to build a movement. The deep flaw was not recognising that resentment, once institutionalised, will look for and find new targets of its own.

Has Trumpism been defeated? Probably not. McCarthyism survived McCarthy's death. Thatcherism survived Margaret Thatcher. Movements embedded in deindustrialisation, demographic anxiety, and a deep-rooted - and not entirely unjustified - distrust of liberal elites do not dissolve overnight. To trivialise these grievances would be to repeat the error that produced Trump in 2016.

The nearer danger is about an angry president. Amongst the winners of Tuesday was Jim Himes, re-elected in his district in Connecticut. Nearly four decades ago, at Oxford in 1988, we shared a house on Crick Road. He is now the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and is likely to chair it. If Trump is going to wage war on Iran, he will have to explain himself to men of unimpeachable integrity like Himes and others on the committee. The incoming Congress can investigate, subpoena and block. Trump's response came within hours, a picture of a red "veto" hat on Truth Social. Democrats do not have the two-thirds majority needed to override him. Expect a gridlock. Beyond the veto, trade policy, war and executive action still give the president a great deal of power. If Trump can't win at home, he may look to the rest of the world for success.

This shouldn't be ignored by India. In little over a year, we have been hit with US tariffs of up to 50 per cent, reduced to 18 per cent in exchange for stopping our purchases of Russian oil. We have been threatened with a $1,00,000 fee on certain H-1B visas. Our investment in Chabahar has been threatened by US pressure. All of this came down to one person in the White House. If we want to maintain our strategic autonomy, we need to build relationships with members of Congress. India needs more friends on Capitol Hill, not just in the Oval Office.

Trumpism didn't die on Tuesday. It ended the myth that it cannot lose. Trump showed that anger can win you an election. America has now reminded him that it takes more than anger to govern.

The writer is dean and professor, School of International Studies, JNU, and chair of excellence, Defence Studies Staff College, Wellington