Now, to govern

Democrats must build credible policies

The blue tsunami in the United States (US) mid-term elections, with the Democrats exceeding expectations by taking control of both chambers of Congress and sweeping the majority of gubernatorial seats, has delivered a decisive rejection of President Donald Trump’s policies. The Democrats flipped several governor, House of Representatives, and Senate races, unseating veteran incumbents and decades-old Republican strangleholds. They also placed, for the first time, a Latina as Texas governor and a Muslim in the Senate. Mr Trump repudiated responsibility for his party’s poor showing, saying he wasn’t on the ballot although, before the polls, he had told the electorate to vote as though he were on the ballot. But Democrat euphoria needs to be tempered by the sobering reality of governance.

 Despite the headline-grabbing donations from Big Tech — notably Elon Musk — for the Republicans, the Democrats benefited from an outsize electoral budget, outspending its rival by $800 million, according to OpenSecrets, a non-partisan authority on spending in US elections. A record turnout of African Americans and young people, traditional Democrat voters, also helped. But at the heart of this verdict has been the citizenry’s dissatisfaction with the rising cost of living, which is a result of high tariff walls, and the Iran war, which sent gasoline prices soaring. The Democrats will be fully tested on this account. Broadly, they propose a mix of price controls for consumer products, rent freezes, enhanced subsidies for health care and housing, enforcing a clean-energy transition, and tariff rollbacks. Apart from restoring Medicare, the efficacy of the other policies is open to question.

 The soaring debt of the US government leaves little space for affordable house-building programmes and subsidies. The Nixon-era imposition of price controls in 1971 to counter inflation proved a long-term failure with large-scale shortages and a huge rebound in prices when the controls were lifted. Tariff reversals, on the other hand, risk alienating traditional Democrat bases of labour unions and small businesses. It is worth noting that Joe Biden as President did not roll back tariffs imposed by Mr Trump in his first term precisely for this reason.

 Much, then, depends on ending the war on Iran and re-opening the Strait of Hormuz. Judging from attacks on Iran ahead of the polls, there is little sign that Mr Trump plans to back down. The new Congress will only take power in end-January, which gives the President 60 to 90 days to do things as planned. Although the Republican-controlled Congress, in a remarkable display of bipartisanship, passed a measure demanding the President stop the war against Iran in June under the mostly meaningless War Powers Act, Mr Trump has leveraged his constitutional authority as commander-in-chief to ignore the resolutions. Since Congress also voted him a large budget to continue his Iran policy, he has a funding cushion to continue his Iran campaign. Having ruled through a record number of executive orders in his second term, he is likely to double down on this instrument to further his agenda. Mr Trump has also signalled that he plans to fully leverage his veto powers against Bills passed by the Democrat-controlled Congress. Congress will then require a supermajority to override the presidential veto, no small challenge in the current climate of political polarisation. In short, the next two years of this lame-duck presidency will mark interesting times for the American people — and the world.