Biden’s party did manage to avert what the Democrats feared—landslide by Republicans
The Bharatiya Janata Party loves to keep political debate tethered to emotive issues, The final results of the mid-term polls in the United States are yet to come as these lines are being written, but one thing was clear: there was no ‘red wave.’ It was not that the Republicans had managed to convince Americans about the genuineness of their conservative agenda. This was despite low approval ratings for President Joe Biden and his suboptimal performance. Inflation is soaring; it was 7.9 per cent, though was much less than 9.1 per cent in June. This has led to an increase in interest rates. Living standards have been going down. The Heritage Foundation, a leading think tank, estimates that the average American’s annual income has decreased over $4,200 since Biden took office. In comparison, his predecessor Donald Trump’s record was sterling, with median household income, at $68,700 in 2019, being the highest since 1967 when it was first measured. And the 2019 number was inflation-adjusted. The poverty rate fell to the lowest level of 10.5 per cent in 2019. During the first three years when Trump was president, the unemployment rate hit a 50-year low. Evidently, the Covid pandemic badly hit not just the Americans and people around the world but also his presidency. His policies helped everyone in the country but thought leaders, including the mainstream media, intensely disliked him and whatever he did. Biden was the beneficiary, but he has kept blundering from one issue to the other. His policies have mostly brought pain to his people. This explains his low ratings.
A single factor explains his unpopularity and various failings: dominance of the Left in the Democratic Party. It has resulted in insane movements like ‘defund the police’ (leading to rise in crimes in many parts, especially those under Democrats) and energy dependence (under Trump, the US had become a net energy exporter). This has resulted in high fuel prices and, as a cascading effect, high inflation. All this because Biden has been following the radical climate change agenda. But sometimes in politics, as in life, nothing succeeds like a failure. Well, his party’s performance in mid-terms cannot be called a success but it did manage to avert what pundits predicted and the Democrats feared—a red wave. No party has got a majority in any chamber of Congress, though the Republicans have more seats in both. In the Senate, they have 49 members, whereas the Democrats have 48; in the House of Representatives, the corresponding numbers are 209 and 191. The mid-term results are especially discouraging for Trump, as many of the Republicans he supported lost. This may hurt his chances to run for the 2024 presidential election. That may not be very good for India, for Trump was favourably disposed towards Delhi than Biden is.
