Next week will put to rest whether America supports the politics of Donald Trump or it does not. On Tuesday, we will know the results of the Midterm elections. The outcome will clearly tell us whether Trump’s politics are acceptable to the American voters, or not.
American voters have a checkered history of casting votes. Midterm elections are about mobilizing voters to the polls. Thus, how well the anti-Trump or the pro-Trump get-out-the-votes results gives us the barometer of where Americans want the country to be.
There is a school of thought that believes that the midterm elections are a barometer of the country’s economy. That may have been true, but Donald Trump changed all that. The fact that Trump is on the campaign trail telling everyone that the election is a referendum on him, or that if the Democrats take control they will impeach him proves it.
Should the Democrats gain control of both houses of Congress, the message would be clear – Donald Trump is repudiated by the American voters.
Should the Republicans keep control of both houses of Congress, the message will be crystal clear, America is happy with the direction Donald Trump has taken the country. There would be no ambiguity.
But, if the Democrats take the House and the Republicans keep the Senate (unlikely but vice versa has the same results) the message will be that America is heavily divided between the America First doctrine versus the idea that America is many things.
A divided Congress will stymie the Trump agenda, but as much as the pro-Trump advocates will blame Congress for the stalemate, the fact remains that even with a Republican controlled Congress, Trump’s agenda was stymied on most items.
Regardless of the outcome, some will argue that their voters didn’t make it to the polls for various reasons, or that voters were unfairly, or illegally kept from the polls. But the bottom line is that the voters that cast a vote in the midterms are the voters that have a right to have a say in the country’s future. If a voter did not cast a vote then they didn’t think it important enough to make a change, meaning the status quo was fine for them.
