It's not what you think

There will be midterm elections in America. The Democrats might even win them. But it may not matter under competitive authoritarianism

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I can’t stand two-legged affairs. Think Champions League knockout ties played home and away. It’s not the fear of the away goals rule (RIP) or the additional travel time that bothers me — it’s the lack of closure. What does the first leg even mean? Losing is clearly bad, but winning is scarcely better. Taking a 2-0 lead into the return fixture is less a cushion than a prelude to heartbreak.

That craving for clarity cuts deeper than sport. Across our daily lives, uncertainty gnaws at us. Being dumped hurts, but it’s at least definitive. The drawn-out limbo of a faltering relationship, where neither side can bear to pull the rip cord, can be pure agony. As I wrote back in April (yes — it’s only October and I’m already recycling analogies):

Uncertain waiting times feel longer than finite waiting times. That is why Disney cheerily informs guests how long it will be before they can ride on Space Mountain. Why Transport for London invests in dot matrix displays. And why Uber provides a map with a little car inching down the road. People really would rather wait for a longer, finite period of time than a shorter, indeterminate one.

All come to look for America

Observing from afar the relentless attacks on the US constitution and actual Americans by the Trump administration, it’s tempting to declare something grand and final, like “there won’t be midterm elections next year” or “this is a fascist state”. Not because we know those things to be true, but because the alternative — waiting and wondering — feels worse.

In just the past nine months alone, the White House has:

• Fired more than a dozen Inspectors General, heads of independent watchdogs that investigate waste, fraud and abuse within government

• Impounded congressionally-appropriated funds with multiple agencies, in direct contravention of federal law

• Weaponised the Department of Justice to go after Trump’s political adversaries

• Shut the US Agency for International Development (USAID)

• Launched a campaign of executive orders and public threats against US universities and law firms

• Allowed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to sensitive data on tens of millions of Americans

• Attempted to unilaterally end birthright citizenship, in clear violation of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution

• Deployed masked men to disappear people from the streets, many of whom are sent to detention camps, held in appalling conditions, and deported

• And now, as hundreds of Texas National Guard troops huddle outside an army facility near Chicago, the president is openly threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and send troops into other Democratic-leaning cities

The United States under Trump — and practically any Republican president at this point — is what academics call a “hybrid regime” or “competitive authoritarianism”. This ought not take too much imagination because these systems exist all over the world, including Turkey, Mexico and Tunisia. Even in autocracies such as Russia and Iran, there are elections. It’s just that they are neither free nor fair.

The Economist Global Democracy Index 2024

The 2026 midterms will not only go ahead, the Democrats could win them. Trump and the GOP are unpopular. The economy is slowing. Tariffs are hurting. Many (though not all) voters liked the idea of Trump 2.0 more than the reality. But the point about hybrid regimes is that, even if the opposition manages to scrape over the line in legislative elections, it may not matter all that much. A determined and unshackled executive could simply ignore or overrule the other branches of government.

Look East

Take another global flashpoint — Taiwan. Chinese President Xi Jinping could order the People’s Liberation Army — which has not engaged in a major conflict since 1979 — to launch pre-emptive strikes against US forces in the Pacific and order the largest and most complex amphibious landing in the history of warfare that would make the Normandy landings look like a sandcastle contest.

But what if looks like something else. Missile strikes on critical infrastructure. A naval blockade. Economic strangulation. Sudden but also gradual, giving America and its allies a decision to make over how to respond. We are seeing this in real time with Russia’s use of drones, cyberattacks and exploding parcels against European targets, in order to raise the cost of support for Ukraine, and test just how much the US is really interested in the Nato alliance.

This scene from Yes, Prime Minister is genuinely as good as any in setting out just how complicated and uncertain things can quickly become.

This works for the UK too. For instance — despite the rise in antisemitism that began long before 7 October 2023 but was turbocharged by the Hamas massacre in Israel — I do not believe British Jews will end up in concentration camps somewhere in the Lake District. But I do think life here could become a little more like that long endured by Jews in France or Sweden. In other words¹: harsher, narrower, more fortress-like.

It feels a little bit like we’re 3-0 down from the first leg. But history isn’t written in first legs — that’s the role of the return. Barcelona, Liverpool and Deportivo La Coruña have all come back from such deficits. I’m not holding my breath. But nor am I giving up. And neither should you.

1. Specifically, Josh Glancy’s in The Times