Versión en español

11/7/2018

The midterm elections carried out yesterday in the United States has left an open political panorama. Democrats has recovered the control of the Representatives Chamber (equivalent to Deputies Chamber), where they would sum up 30 benches more, widely overcoming the 23 ones they needed to conquer a majority.

By their part, the republicans keep the primacy in the Senate, and even widen the number of members of their block.

All contenders adjudicated themselves a victory, beginning with Trump himself. It is true that the “blue wave” (color identified with democrats) did not happen.

The tycoon managed to sort out the electoral trance and remain on his feet, but the results are far from handling him the necessary political resources regarding the agenda and challenges ahead.

The electoral outcome leaves him far from the support he needs in order to secure a personal power regime of bonapartist character, in front of the crisis and conflicts he should face in the internal front and in the international field. Among them there are: the migratory crisis; the aggravation of the commercial war, firstly with China; the extension of the bellicose scenario to world scale and the development of the capitalist bankruptcy, which effects are making themselves feel with special strength and provoking the collapse of Wall Street.

The Stocks fall has turned on the alarms of the American economy and put into evidence the fragility of the so advertised economic recovery that Trump came boasting about.

In the course of the campaign, the American president emphasized that the elections were a plebiscite regarding his administration.

In the total vote account, the New York Times is projecting 9 points of difference in favor of the opposition. “The last time the democrats reached a similar victory was in 2008, when the  United States were in the middle of an economic collapse and swamped in an extremely unpopular war in Iraq” (El País, 11/7).

In this election, it was produced what occurred in the presidential contend two years ago: the democrats harvested two millions more votes than the republicans but lost the elections.

That reveals, in the one hand, the anti-democratic and distortive character of the American electoral regime and on the other; it stands out the limits of the Trump administration for the next two years left of mandate. Meanwhile, the opposition majority in the Representatives Chamber will be an obstacle for the approval of laws the White House has in folder.

Not to say that, in the new scenario, there could be activated the investigations against the tycoon and even the impeachment request, though it is difficult that it progresses because its final approval is in hands of the Senate. This resort is useful to him, as well, for naming Court judges.

 Realignments

The elections had put into surface the increasing decomposition of the traditional parties. So as Trump erupted as a rightist “parvenu” in the ranks of the Republican Party, the same is confirmed in the Democrat Party, but to the left. A legion of young people, women and representatives of minorities has erupted in the political scene, facing the most conservative personnel that come managing historically the threads of the party. The phenomenon, insinuated by Sanders in 2016, has multiplied itself.

With the results available, the Capitol is having the higher number of congress women in its history. This shows the space wan by the women movement, invigorated by the “me too” wave, which pointed its cannons against the president, accused of abuses by several women and who has been characterized by his misogynistic comments.

For the first time, a declared homosexual was elected governor in Colorado; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, from New York, has became, with 29 years old, in the youngest woman ever elected in the Representatives Chamber and the victory of Rashida Tlaib, in Michigan, meant the arrival of the first Muslim origin person to Capitol. To this it adds the entering of representatives of the Latin minorities.

These candidatures had managed to raise enthusiasm in the ranks of the Democrat party, particularly in the new generation. Their postulation was accompanied by a big mobilization and they were able to spread the interest to go to vote to those that had abstained to do so two years ago, with the nomination of Hillary Clinton.

Thus, the number of voters was superior to the midterm elections in 2014.

In the agenda of these new ‘outsiders’ there are social claims ignored by the Democrat establishment, as a minimum wage of 15 dollars, the defense of the health care and its extension and the suppression of migratory restrictions. Thus, it was left exposed the growing abyss between the top of the Democrat Party and the popular base of adherents and voters.

The migratory question was absent in the official Democrat propaganda, when Trump made the attack to immigrants one of the central axes of the Republican campaign. This should not be strange, if we have in mind that Obama was a serial deporter under his rule.

Trump exploited the pusillanimity of the Democrats but, even so, he could not help a turn in the vote to be produced. To the Democrat conquests in the Congress you have to add the new governs in the states of Michigan, Illinois, New Mexico and Kansas, which evens the states distribution in the country. In the industrial districts such as Michigan, that indicates a displacement in the working class which in 2016 voted for Trump. In Texas, a district with higher weight of the rural population and historically Republican, was produced a great voting to the Democrat candidate, thought it was not enough for a victory. As it was marked by some analysts, there, the discontent of the rural people that comes bearing a fall in the soy price, as consequence of the Chinese retaliation, snuck in.

The government policy is provoking an increasing division in the bourgeoisie. A part of it is reluctant to commercial war, signaling that it threats with causing a dislocation if the world economy. The tariffs are increasing the industrial costs, rising prices to consumption and harming exportations.

The commercial, monetary and financial war sharpens the tendency to markets closure, by the countries affected by the measures taken in Washington.

Another point of controversy spins around immigration, where restrictions clashes with the capitalist class which usufructs the migrant labor force.

Perspectives

Trump’s policy carries explosive contradictions, as in the internal as in the international field. The tycoon wagers to survive deepening this policy.

His road sheet includes a reinforcement of the police State and the persecution to immigrants and minorities and an accentuation of the commercial war, firstly against China; of militarism and bellicose escalations.

The Democrat majority in the Representatives Chamber weaken these plans, though this party defends governability. Nancy Pelosi, who will be consecrated as president of the Representatives Chamber, has already forwarded that the Democrat Party will endeavour in    “cooperation” with the White House, helping the blood not to get to the river.

Anyway, the agenda Washington is endeavoured poses a convulsive scenario and could only break through political quakes. This will spur the clashes in the bosom of the bourgeoisie and the political regime, which is already expressed in the agencies war and the media one, and the denounces that weigh on the tycoon and which, in its turn, may activate an impeachment.

Over this, the tendencies towards popular eruption might develop, with more reason if the economic activity declines. This scenario is the breeding ground for a political polarization and the appearance in the scene of political tendencies independent of the system parties.