by Laurence Peterson
[Y]ou only have yourselves to blame. —Donald Trump, 5 November, 2026
Two years ago, in these pages, I tried to express an intensely personal, and very deep sense of what I can only call anguished disgust, with the predicament that constitutes electoral politics in America. I related how, anticipating the experience of having to vote for a Kamala Harris, participant in what should be in any sane world a simply disqualifying Gaza genocide and dedicated to tested milquetoast policies–at best–whose attempted implementation seemed certain to advance rage-inspired responses on the part of a growing far-right (never mind the left), or for a third-party candidate in a wasted vote in what was expected by almost everyone to be a perhaps historically close outcome that would inevitably be contested, thereby very possibly throwing the election to a Trump I fully expected to carry out Project 2025 policies and inspired maneuvers, legal or not–and then some–as he did; and I said I wished I could smuggle a gun into the voting booth and blow my brains out after participating in such a disgrace. I did not relate at the time how I actually had to check myself when I wanted to respond to the election worker offering me an “I voted” lapel sticker by telling him where he could shove it. I managed to summon up enough common decency to decline politely instead of making this pathetic situation unnecessarily much worse.
As it turned out, I needn’t have agonized about any of this: driven in part by the very concerns I mentioned above about Harris, Trump defeated her by enough to render my concerns about closeness or contestation utterly moot. And my column was denounced as “bothsiderism” amongst other things in the comments section. The fact that I had actually voted for Harris anyway made the whole thing even more pointedly absurd.
Two years later, voters in Minneapolis and Houston decorated memorials devoted to residents murdered by Trump’s ICE with the same “I voted” stickers I turned from with revulsion in 2024, on a day in which Democrats easily took both houses of Congress, as well as state houses and legislatures throughout the country, even in places like Texas, South Carolina, Kansas–which hadn’t elected a Democratic senator in 100 years–and Mississippi (the Senate race there remains too close to call as I write on Sunday, 8 November, though the Democrat, Scott Colom, is leading by a few thousand votes). Democratic candidates throughout the country managed to take constituency seats in places Trump and Republicans won in 2024 with previously unthinkable swings of 30 and 40 points, in certain cases. It is the most lopsided congressional victory since the post-Watergate scandal/Vietnam war debacle in 1974.
It is obviously far too early to speculate seriously on how durable this unambiguously massive electoral victory by the Democrats over Trump and the Republicans will be, and proper data will not be available to support such for some time. After four days of thinking hard about the elections, days which themselves featured important news developments not totally related to the poll, like the massive swings in asset price values, wildly divergent rumors about the resumption of active hostilities in Iran and major changes of personnel in the government (one of which seems centrally casted, to use a favorite Trump designation, at Comedy Central, I will confine my remarks to two central points, which I believe have been very much neglected in the commentary I have so far seen. The first concerns the significance of the outrageously corrupt, costly and totally counter-productive–certainly in terms of any sensible democracy–campaign finance regime.
As has long been the trend, spending on elections handily set a new record in the new cycle, even though this is not a presidential election year. Spending is projected at $11.9 billion, which easily surpasses 2022’s $11.2 billion, in inflation-adjusted dollars, and donations are originating increasingly in the tech–IT in particular–industry (crypto and gambling also register strong numbers), as well as within a narrowing set of super-wealthy donors and corporations (whilst labor’s contributions, even amongst Democrats, lag to the point of insignificance, by the way). Certain individuals have donated or control distribution over shocking amounts. Readers probably have good sense of the situation, so I will not cite other data (please see the articles I have linked to for more figures and commentary) right now.
It has become clear in the last few days that many see the 2026 midterms as some kind of decisive repudiation of the role money–especially big money–has come to play in US electoral politics. I believe such a reading is wildly misguided. Headlines like “Musk Has Little To Show for His Record Spending in US Midterms” seem to anticipate an imminent reduction in the importance of campaign spending, as well as a possible reversal in the actual sums that will be thrown at elections in the future. But it is absurd to believe that one election result itself can or will decisively undermine a political structure that has become so uniquely buttressed as our elections system has given political, financial and especially media structures that are all so primarily responsive to pecuniary incentives. All of these structures will continue to privilege money-raising capabilities as indispensable signals regarding the viability of political campaigns; the courts, dominated as they are, especially at the highest levels by Republican appointees–as well will resist strongly any serious attempts at electoral reform; political alliances will continue to rely on lasting contribution streams that have developed over decades, even amongst Progressives; and the persistence of ludicrously long campaign cycles will ensure that massive injections of cash will be be the order of the day in our elections for some time to come. I wish this weren’t true; I hope the Democrats actually do fight aggressively to staunch the gaping wounds that afflict the bleeding near-corpse that is American democracy. But to take an electoral reversal, even of the magnitude this one appears to constitute, as a sign that realities that constrain any change of something as bloated and outsized as our election system seems to ensure that many will succumb to the temptation to allow the election victory to avert their gaze from the unpleasant fact that not only does the leviathan remain essentially untouched, but will continue to grow for some time, no matter what we do. Even as it becomes clearer and clearer that the spending is, in essential respects, wasted.
The other issue I think must be adequately considered before we can even begin to pronounce sensibly upon the ultimate significance and possible durability of Tuesday’s result concerns the potential shifts amongst the configurations of elites in the country. Of course, reluctance to opine on this point is highly appropriate due to the paucity of reliable information obtained so far. One area I hope to see investigated in detail is what many commentators have referred to as “local gentry“; the non-billionaire property-owning strata who dominate the politics and business and even cultural and charitable milieux in so very many US localities, and went strongly for Trump in 2022. Did they defect? To what, if anything, in a consistent or potentially durable way? Are they to be considered in any sense reliable for Democrats? And what will they demand to maintain any allegiance? Are they capable of changing their current priorities at all?
Again, I hope the Democrats act uncharacteristically aggressively; that they devise and implement a reverse flood-the zone strategy that involves passing legislation every day on key elements of economic security and uplift that the have proven so important to swathes of voters, daring Trump to veto it and thereby endanger Republican congress members; that they will force an end to the obscene war with Iran and ensure no further aggressive outrages take place, especially in our own hemisphere; that investigations of corrupt administration personnel with strategic merit will proliferate; that assaults on our own population will cease and be punished; and that serious attempts to dismantle the campaign finance regime will be forthcoming during the span of the new Congress. But we can take nothing for granted, regardless of a great electoral victory. Vigorous opposition to Trump and his regime cannot cease to grow.
Whilst composing this piece, I have been bombarded with requests for campaign contributions for campaigns that, in a strict sense, ended nearly a week ago. They all originated from campaigns which made up an important part of the great victory from last week. This alone makes me more pessimistic about the likelihood of enduring change, especially regarding electoral politics, than I was when I began it a few hours ago. Maybe they will finally stop if I send them an “I voted” lapel sticker?