The congressional midterm elections were a referendum on the cost of living, not Donald Trump’s threat to American democracy and the rule of law.

The midterm election result pleases supporters of liberal democracy for two main reasons. One is that most Americans voted to reject Trumpism, along with all the authoritarian, anti-democratic qualities of that ism. The other reason is that the threat of disruption of the election or denial of its results by President Donald Trump and his supporters did not materialize. Trump instead says he accepts the election result, and he is limiting himself to trying to shift blame for the outcome. 

One should bear in mind, however, the main reasons for this tame response by the president. One is the sheer size of the Democratic victory, which would have rendered incredible any claims that fraud or other irregularities determined the result. If, say, a closer outcome had left control of the Senate hinging on the races in Alaska and Mississippi, Trump probably would be gearing up familiar tactics of interference and denial rather than docilely conceding the results. 

Another reason was how much Trump telegraphed the possibility that he might use extreme measures to manipulate the election or reject its result. Extensive discussion of this subject reduced what would have been the credibility of any later claims by Trump of fraud, which the world would see as reflecting a prior intent to reject the election result rather than any actual irregularities. 

Moreover, the widespread awareness of the threat of Trump-instigated election interference led many state and local officials to prepare to respond to any such interference. They were aided by unofficial groups such as the National Security Leaders for America. Those preparations probably had a deterrent effect. 

The state of American democracy should be viewed in an international context. Fraudulent claims of fraud, as a method of rejecting unfavorable election results, arise not just in poverty-stricken places that Trump would call “shithole countries” but also in more developed nations, among foreign political allies of Trump. 

After he lost a recent election in Brazil, right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro refused to concede—following in the footsteps of his father Jair, who had responded to an earlier election defeat by attempting to stay in power through a coup. Flávio Bolsonaro then flew to Florida with the cooperation of Trump, who said, without evidence, that the Brazilian election looked “rigged.” 

Trump’s Israeli ally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, lost his governing majority in a recent election. Netanyahu responded by claiming fraud, a claim that had no apparent basis. 

Refusals to accept election results are unfortunately part of a larger worldwide trend in recent years away from observance of democratic norms and in the direction of increased autocracy. 

Nonetheless, some would-be authoritarians in the Trumpian mold have observed those norms enough to accept election defeats, even after they have used governmental powers to tilt elections in their favor. Such leaders have included Viktor Orbán in Hungary and, more recently, Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia. One of their reasons for conceding is the same situation that Trump faced after the US midterm election, which is that the opposition’s margin of victory was too large to credibly call it into question. Another reason was that these leaders hope to return to power someday through later elections.

Trumpism is transnational and includes figures such as Orbán and Vučić. Trump’s former political adviser Steve Bannon has been a leader in cross-border organizing of right-wing populists in Europe. The American counterparts of those right-wingers were so admiring of Orbán’s regime when he was still in power that they repeatedly held conferences in Hungary. 

Notwithstanding Orbán’s and Vučić’s setbacks, Trump-allied right-wingers have been doing well elsewhere, including in Latin America and France, where one of their kind will likely become the next president. In Germany, the fastest-rising party is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has neo-Nazi connections and which the German internal security service has formally designated as an extremist group. 

The authoritarian, anti-democratic aspect of the Trump-allied transnational movement is like a zoonotic disease, in which a pathogen can move between humans and other species. The United States may appear after this month’s election to have beaten back a political disease, but the possibility of further infection remains, especially considering overseas influences that can include outright interference in US elections. 

The American body politic remains vulnerable to anti-democratic infection. Although some observers view the midterm election result optimistically as a reaffirmation of democratic values, polls show that even more important to most voters was the price of groceries and gasoline. If Trump had not blundered into trade wars and kinetic wars that fueled inflation, the election might have come out differently, and the threat to democracy would remain.

A sobering thought is that 147 members of Congress voted in January 2021 to reject the result of a free and fair election. Approximately 80 of those members will still be in Congress when it convenes in January. 

A further sobering thought is that just two years ago, a plurality of American voters elected Trump to a second term despite what he did at the end of his first term, which was a direct assault on American democracy and the Constitution. 

Meanwhile, two more years remain in the term of a president who has shown little regard not only for democratic norms but also for the rule of law and the will of Congress even when his own party had a congressional majority. There is no reason to expect him to show any more respect for those things when Democrats are the majority. 

With this month’s election, American democracy has taken a step back from a precipice, but it still is on unstable ground.  

About the Author: Paul Pillar

​​Paul R. Pillar retired in 2005 from a 28-year career in the US intelligence community, in which his last position was as the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia. Earlier, he served in a variety of analytical and managerial positions, including as chief of analytic units at the CIA, covering portions of the Near East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. His most recent book is Beyond the Water’s Edge: How Partisanship Corrupts US Foreign Policy. He is also a contributing editor for The National Interest.

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