OK so… I went against what I said I was gonna do for the next few days and I kept tabs on the news all through the night when I was supposed to be fast asleep, specifically the midterms results as they slowly trickled in. Sorry about that, but at the same time, it was oddly thrilling. I said yesterday that I was feeling pretty anxious about the results, mostly because I was concerned about what a certain someone would do if the results weren’t to his liking, but also because I don’t take anything regarding elections as a guarantee. Yes, all the polls seemed to be indicating that there would be an enormous blue wave, but I’ve learned a long time ago not to trust the polls. Either way, it was a undeniably great night for the Democrats… and hopefully for the country as well.
Obviously, this doesn’t mean that everything will be sunshine and roses going forward, especially since there’s another two years to go before the next election and Agent Orange certainly isn’t going to make things easy, but at least there’s reason to be hopeful again. I was already feeling cautiously optimistic after seeing the likes of Hungary, Brazil and Serbia reject their respective wannabe dictators and far-right demagogues, but I think even the most optimistic expectations have been surpassed and then some. It says something that even staunchly red states like Texas and Kansas have flipped blue for the first time in a long time — in the case of Kansas, a very long fucking time — and I’m feeling particularly ecstatic about the fact that most of the presidentially-approved candidates lost, to say nothing of the fact that Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, donated billions to the GOP in an ultimately futile bid to influence the midterms. Just goes to show that money can buy a lot of things but it doesn’t necessarily buy votes or influence. That, above all else, makes me feel incredibly happy.
So what happens next? I’m not sure. That’s partially up to the president and how he chooses to respond - based on comments he’s made so far to Fox News and the New York Times, he seems uncharacteristically gracious so take that for whatever that’s worth - but the ball is very much also in the Democrats’ corner now that they have both the House and the Senate. I sincerely hope that they push back hard against the President and the GOP’s agenda of hatred, disenfranchisement and petty vindictiveness. They did extremely well to get to where they are, but now, the onus is entirely on them to deliver and not squander those hard-earned gains.
That’ll come further down the line, but for now, I think we can all celebrate.
P.S. I don’t know why I feel the need to stress this, but yes, I know I’m not American. I should probably be writing about pop culture and other apolitical topics instead, but literally everything that this current administration has done over the last two years has had some kind of effect on the rest of the western world so forgive me if I take a slightly invested interest in American politics from time to time. Apologies for being a bit defensive but it does fucking bug me to no end when people say that American politics has little-to-no effect on us here in Northern Ireland.
