US midterms: the elections we never give the weight they deserve

On 8 November, elections will be held in the US, yet very few people on this side of the Atlantic are giving them the importance they truly deserve. A world plunged into utter and seemingly uncontrollable chaos, with a war in which the world’s second-largest nuclear power – undoubtedly led by a madman – is losing; power-hungry Chinese and a global economy in tatters; what is highly likely to happen is that the leader of the West will go on to govern the US as a ‘lame duck’ for the remaining two years of his term. Meanwhile, testing the waters to see what sticks, a former president – as mad as the Russian and named Trump, accused of stealing top-secret documents, tax fraud and inciting violent mobs – is managing to maintain his influence and his more than likely candidacy for the next presidential election. I believe we Europeans should take a good, hard look at ourselves if we fail to give these elections the importance they deserve.

By Miguel Ángel Temprano

17 October 2022 Reading time: 3.30 mins

Four years ago now, once the results of the very same elections due to be held in the US in a few days’ time were known, I predicted that Trump would lose the presidential election two years later, provided the Democrats fielded a normal candidate. And I wrote the name of someone who hadn’t even stood as a candidate yet: Joe Biden.(1)

I’m no fortune-teller; I’ve simply analysed, state by state, the 30 elections held over the last 20 years. As things stand – barring a radical, unforeseeable last-minute change – it is virtually certain that the Democrats will lose the Senate and highly likely that they will lose the House of Representatives.

“Four years ago, the mid-term election results signalled the coming change in the White House”

And someone might ask me, ‘What’s this got to do with me if I live on the other side of the Atlantic?’ Well, it should matter to you – a great deal, in fact.

Obviously, this isn’t a topic of conversation amongst passengers on the underground or the bus, unlike the reform of the judiciary, as the Spanish Minister of Justice claims – incidentally, I don’t know about you, but when I’m on the underground or the bus, I

What I hear most of all is people’s silence, broken only by the tremendous noise that

It’s like the underground when it’s running – but, unfortunately for us, American politics plays a crucial role in our lives, and I’m going to try to explain why.

We have recently seen an example of American power. An example that may be silly, but is nonetheless significant. At the Queen of England’s funeral, the American President was the only one to arrive at the Abbey with his security detail, whilst all the other world leaders travelled by bus.

Even Macron chose to show what I consider to be a lack of respect by turning up in trainers, whilst the Japanese had to persuade Parliament to allow their Emperor to travel in such a dangerous mode of transport. But the British had to bow to the Americans, because, as the Spanish saying goes, ‘where the captain’s in charge, the sailor isn’t’. Incidentally, believe what you see in the films about ‘Air Force One’. It disregards agreed timetables and does not follow the designated approach routes when landing. And only they do this, although there’s a certain someone we all know who’d also like to be allowed to do the same.

In the elections on 8 November, the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate will be re-elected, and a wide range of public office holders, such as governors, district attorneys and sheriffs, will also be elected.

As a general point of information, the full Congress is renewed every two years, whilst senators’ terms of office last for six years, with one third of the Senate being renewed every two years.

In the US, the legislature is not subject to the whims of a president, as it is in Spain.

There, members of the House of Representatives and/or senators are completely independent and are accountable, not just on paper but in practice, solely to their constituents.

“The Democrats’ tenuous hold on the Senate will come to an end, but only because they are going to lose it”

The Senate is currently controlled by the Democrats thanks to the casting vote provided by its President, who is not an elected senator but the country’s Vice-President. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris(2) is proving to be a profound disappointment, even to me, who, like her husband, had hoped she would become the first woman to sit in the Oval Office – and not merely as a guest. Kamala Harris has appalling approval ratings stemming from her complete inaction, which not only fails to help her party but actually harms it.

Meanwhile, Trump, embroiled in all sorts of scandals, let us not forget that he is being prosecuted by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in a tax fraud case, by the FBI in a case involving the theft of documents classified as ‘Top Secret’, and by Parliament as the instigator of the assault on the House of Commons on that abominable 6 January 2020.

Well, this figure – whose very presence would be laughable were it not for who he is – continues to command a massive loyal following and wield such influence that he has managed to ensure that Liz Cheney, the Member of Congress for Wyoming and daughter of the “president” and the influential Dick Cheney – I mention this because during George W. Bush’s term in office, he was the one who was really in charge – has failed to secure the Republican nomination to stand for re-election.

“Trump’s influence even extends to ousting the daughter of the most powerful man during the Bush administration from Congress”

Anyone who knows the US well will realise that the country is not the one you visit on a holiday. The US is not just California, New York or Chicago. Just 100 kilometres from Philadelphia, the city where independence was declared and home to some of the world’s finest universities, we also find masses of voters blindly loyal to Trump. The sort who drank bleach simply because the President told them to. Well, it is precisely these voters who should be a cause for concern for us Europeans.

We are at a time when inflation is spiralling out of control across the globe, with a madman at the helm of the world’s second-largest nuclear power, with the Chinese determined to take over the world – though we still do not know how – and where the measures taken by the Americans affect us, though we do not know in what way.

An American president governing for the next two years as a ‘lame duck’ – a purely Anglo-Saxon expression that I do not understand – with no influence over either house of Congress, can only cause chaos on the other side of the Atlantic, preventing any of the necessary fiscal measures from being taken to control the runaway inflation caused by the Fed’s interest rate rises, or any attempt to bring some order to a world where we Europeans are incapable of doing so because we really cannot agree on almost anything.

“If Biden fails to bring the Saudis to heel, our immediate future will be controlled by OPEC+”

There has been much talk recently about the need for the Americans to put pressure on the Saudis through coercive measures to prevent them from aligning with Russia on decisions regarding oil production cuts. Well, these measures are based on a bill pending approval by the Senate known as NOPEC (No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartel Act), which is opposed by many Republican senators.

When the price per barrel of oil began to show signs of stabilising – caused by the lower

global consumption – which in turn was caused by the recession we’re currently in – these fine gentlemen from OPEC+ met to decide whether to cut production by between 0.5 and 1.5 million barrels a day. Well, they came to a Solomonic decision – neither one thing nor the other – and, with what little sarcasm I have left, they decided that, so as not to fall short, they would cut production by 2 million, once again triggering a surge in prices that is damaging our economies time and time again.

Although the Fed, the US counterpart to the ECB, is a fully independent body, we cannot ignore its political dimension; it makes technical decisions, but these are clearly influenced by political considerations. No one can deny that these individuals are influenced – even if only ethically – by the majorities represented in the chambers.

We’ve got two years of misery left to go. Don’t let anyone believe the rubbish our government is feeding us. The global economy is in a right mess, and the Spanish economy… well, I can’t think of a polite, politically correct way to describe it – but above all, I don’t want to be rude.

A long time ago, I described the monetary policy that was being pursued as a medicine – the unlimited creation of money – which saved us but is now the poison that is killing us.

“Not even Moses parting the waters of the Red Sea could prevent us from crossing the desert that lies ahead”

There is a limit to the expansion of public spending: one is temporal, because Brussels is not going to allow this to continue for the rest of our days; the other is quantitative, because when a country fails to inspire confidence – and excessive debt is the primary cause of mistrust – it goes bankrupt. And it goes bankrupt because nobody is willing to finance it, and unfortunately, every day we look more and more like the Podemos-led Greece of Tsipras and Varoufakis (who, incidentally, like any good radicals, are now at loggerheads).

Well then, in this context, political stability and reasonableness in the US matter a great deal to us.

And just to clarify, I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat – amongst other things because I don’t vote there but here – but if I had done so, in some cases I would have voted Republican, for example for Reagan, and in others Democrat, for example for Clinton. But the current Republican Party has been hijacked by a madman. And for anyone who doesn’t share this view, I invite you to read one of the latest books by, in my opinion, the most renowned journalist in the US, Bob Woodward (yes, the one from the Watergate affair).

But to conclude, I think my confidence or hope in that stability is going to be dashed, and the journey through the wilderness over the next two years is going to be tougher than crossing the Siberian steppe in a T-shirt and shorts in January.