WP: America’s rejection of Trump and the GOP was broad and deep

Photo: Washington State Standard

Mathematics has a branch called “catastrophe theory,” which analyzes how mounting pressure can lead to a sudden break in a structure that had once looked solid. On Election Day, the rupture suffered by President Donald Trump’s GOP was a real-life demonstration of that process of collapse, The Washington Post writes.

Trump suffered a decisive rebuke. The president’s hold on national politics had seemed intact, despite his erratic policies and declining popularity — until Tuesday, when GOP support crumbled in many states and congressional districts where it had surged just two years ago. Trump retains his hardcore MAGA base, but on Tuesday moderate GOP and independent voters who had backed Trump in 2024 abandoned the GOP to either vote for Democrats or stay home.

As strong Democratic results rolled in across the map, the rejection of Trump and his party was so broad and deep that it will be hard for Trump’s supporters to rebut, despite their plans to challenge balloting and vote counts. Some races remain uncalled Wednesday, but Democrats easily took control of the Senate and House.

The political pendulum often swings in midterm elections, but 2026’s results seemed something far more consequential. Analysts told me that voters appeared angry at Trump — not just because of high gas prices and a confounding war against Iran, but because they thought the president had betrayed the values he had proclaimed so loudly. He had shredded his claim to be a competent business manager and his promise stop what he had derided as endless wars.

Democrats planned this campaign carefully, knowing that it was their best chance to check the power of a president who had busted through many of the normal ethical and political guardrails. Though progressive candidates in solidly blue states drew headlines for advocating socialism, the congressional leadership recruited moderate candidates who could flip seats in swing states and districts. It was those swing-state moderates who drove large gains in the House.

Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colorado) helped lead this selection process. I joined him on Capitol Hill a year ago as he met prospective House candidates. He told them to campaign as if they were running for mayor by focusing on pocketbook issues and ignoring divisive national political wars. “Take risks. Be bold. If something doesn’t work, move on,” he said.

How will Trump react to the result? Trump could lean even harder into foreign policy, where his powers as president survive mostly undiminished. He has an imminent war-or-peace decision with Iran, three-way talks in a week with Ukraine and Russia to stop the Ukraine war and a possible summit meeting in China this month with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump can steer this agenda, despite likely Democratic attempts to boost military aid for a desperate Ukraine and curb his war-making powers with Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will be a special target of the Democratic assault. “Hegseth needs to be removed,” argued Crow, an Army Ranger veteran.

“This election night will come to be regarded as Trump’s swan song,” argued Robert Merry, a presidential historian and longtime political reporter who was editor of the American Conservative. “The opposition Congress will seek to destroy Trump, which will make him all the more erratic and outrageous.”

As for the Democrats, despite all their fresh success, “They seem ill-equipped to parlay their victories into what the country desperately needs — a fresh governing philosophy that could undergird a new political coalition that can begin the process of bringing the country back together,” contended Merry.

read more in our Telegram-channel https://t.me/The_International_Affairs