American voters may have created fresh risk for the country as the US President looks to cement his power before the mid-terms
WASHINGTON, DC – Democrats in New York City, Virginia, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut and Ohio are celebrating as the party basks in the glory of across-the-board, historic victories that even saw them vanquish Vice President JD Vance’s half-brother in a race for Cincinnati’s mayoralty.
But American voters may have created fresh risk for the country by the sheer audacity of the Democrats’ wins.
Zohran Mamdani, the new energetic poster child for left-wing Democrats, goaded the US President after his landslide win in the race to become New York City’s next mayor. “If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him,” Mamdani thundered. “So Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up.”
That message might just as well have been directed to his own party’s grandees, given the number of prominent Democrats who failed to endorse Mamdani in the New York race, spooked by his brand of populist, left-wing politics.
Trump may well choose to “turn up the volume”, but perhaps not in the manner that Mamdani was proposing. Voters made it clear that when 63 per cent of them tell pollsters that they disapprove of the job he’s doing, they really mean it. As he listens to that message, the President is likely to see his own options narrowing ahead of next November’s mid-term elections.
Then, the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate will be on the ballot. While Democrats on Wednesday morning were exuding confidence that they will now cruise to victory, retaking control of Congress via a tidal wave of voter enthusiasm, Trump may give fresh consideration to the nuclear option: manufacturing a reason to postpone or even cancel the mid-terms entirely.
You think it can’t happen? The President has made no bones about his plans. As recently as last weekend in an interview with the CBS News programme 60 Minutes, he again threatened to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act that would allow him to deploy active duty military personnel, including the US marines, on the streets of American cities. “The Insurrection Act has been used routinely by presidents,” he falsely claimed during the interview. “I haven’t chosen to use it…but if I needed to, I could do it. And if I need it, that would mean I could bring in the army, the marines, I could bring in whoever I want.”
Trump knows that with each passing day, his potential need to take dramatic action is likely to intensify. He cannot afford to lose Republican control of the House of Representatives next November. Were Democrats to regain a majority in the legislature, they would have the power to tie his administration up in impeachment knots for the remaining two years of his term.
He would immediately become not only the lamest of political ducks, but at tremendous risk of being held to personal account for the excesses of his first year in office. His inner circle would be targeted for their culpability in actions ranging from his thuggish programme of mass deportations to his possibly-unconstitutional global trade war to his illegal maritime warfare against alleged drug traffickers in Latin America … and that’s before we get to the demolition of the East Wing of the White House.
Manufacturing a “national security emergency” and invoking the Insurrection Act would create the opening that he may need to argue falsely that a law and order crisis is gripping major American cities and requires the mid-term elections to be postponed. In his only comment as Tuesday night’s electoral disaster unfolded, he posted a foreboding message on his social media account: “…AND SO IT BEGINS.”
As Trump presides over the longest government shutdown in US history, he is also urging Republican lawmakers to take another step that is even informally described as a “nuclear option”: incinerate the Senate’s “filibuster rule” that requires a two-thirds majority in the legislature to get the government to reopen.
Were Republicans to embrace that proposal, it would create a new precedent allowing any law to pass in the Senate with a simple one-vote majority. The power dynamics would shift even further in Trump’s favour.
Republicans on Capitol Hill are resisting the President’s plan, fearing a future in which Democrats may find themselves able to transform the country’s outlook with the same simple, one-vote majority. But the mere fact that he has embraced the idea is fresh evidence that he is now willing to do whatever it takes to cement his authority in place.
Staring at Wednesday morning’s headlines, Trump is unlikely to surrender to voters’ abundant fury with him. He’ll “turn up the volume”, all right. And Americans’ free and fair vote in the mid-terms may be his first target.
