Can America ever return to pre-Trump politics?
The US midterms were a rejection of Trump's politics of division, but his legacy may be impossible to undo.
“I think it’s safe to say that we are tired of being pitted against each other. We are tired of being told to hate each other. It has been 10 years of this kind of politics. Politics as blood sport. Politics as trolling and owning. Politics as professional wrestling. It tears families apart. It ends friendships, and it leaves us all feeling terrible all the time.”
So said Senator-elect James Talarico in his victory speech on election night after he won the first United States Senate seat in Texas for the Democratic Party in almost 40 years.
I don’t like Talarico or his policies, but I agree with him on one thing: The American people are tired of being pitted against one another. We need more uniters and fewer dividers in the Republican Party and US politics in general.
When Trump claimed the political establishment had stolen his re-election, he didn’t sit idly by, accepting the results. He consulted his lawyers, came up with a dubious legal strategy and then unleashed his supporters on Capitol Hill, hoping upon hope that their pressure would bend the hallowed traditions of presidential succession to his will. It didn’t work, but it also didn’t disqualify him.