More importantly, voters have made it easier for members of his Republican Party to speak against him more often by rejecting most key candidates for election this year who publicly denounced or questioned President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.
That’s critically true for the state governors and legal officials who administer all elections under the US system. In fact, in the 13 elections for governor, secretary of state, or attorney-general that were held in the six most closely contested states from the 2020 presidential election, “election deniers” were defeated in every vote.
In this sense, the election was not a victory for Biden’s Democrats, who lost their majority in the House of Representatives, or for Republicans, who failed to earn a predicted majority in the Senate.
Instead, it was a win for members of both parties who believe the laws that govern US elections must be respected and the institutions that guarantee the impartiality of their conduct are sacrosanct.
Ironically, the result does help the Republican Party in one important way: It discredits Trump acolytes who might persuade large numbers of voters on the right that voting is a waste of time because their votes won’t be counted fairly.
It’s also a victory for governments of other countries that value the integrity and predictability of their relations with Washington.
Even those who believe that US foreign policy is not a force for good in the world can take comfort from the reassurance that the only country in the world that can project military power into every region of the world won’t become a wildcard in international politics and the global economy, with major policy reversals following every new election.
Trump remains a formidable figure within the Republican Party, and there is no guarantee that he can’t win his party’s nomination for president in 2024, particularly if a large number of anti-Trump Republican candidates split the anti-Trump vote between them.
But more Republicans have been emboldened to publicly denounce Trump’s conspiracy theories and his calls to terminate constitutional rules. More importantly, the midterm results ensure there will be no cabal of political officials with oversight over upcoming elections who actively try to reverse unfavourable outcomes. That was the single greatest realistic threat to US democracy, with dire effects on US foreign, trade, and investment policies and global economic growth.
What can we now expect from US government from January 3? Good old-fashioned gridlock. Republicans will use their narrow majority in the House to block Biden’s agenda and wage political warfare on his presidency. Democrats will use their narrow majority in the Senate to prevent the passage of Republican legislation and to approve more left-leaning judges to federal positions to balance the right-leaning judges appointed by Trump.
In short, US politics will remain predictably dysfunctional – but no longer in ways that threaten US and global stability.
Ian Bremmer is the president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media and author of The Power of Crisis. His Twitter handle is @ianbremmer and he is on Facebook as Ian Bremmer.
