David A. Andelman, visiting scholar at the Center on National Security at Fordham Law, wrote an op-ed for Reuters regarding the recent midterm election results.
Only a handful of true autocrats were ever likely to be among those eager to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the American president or celebrate what he called “a tremendous success” in Tuesday’s vote. Many world leaders had likely hoped to be assessing how wounded he might have been. Now they are probably trying to assess what their next steps should be.
There are efforts everywhere to draw some positive outcome from what Trump was celebrating: his Republican Party increasing its Senate majority while Democrats won back control of the House of Representatives. It was the outcome predicted by pollsters, but disappointing to those who hoped the result would reflect a decisive rejection of Trump. “No tidal wave, but a tide has turned,” editorialized the Japan Times. “The electoral victory of the Democrats may not be very big,” the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung observed, “But it shows how vulnerable the Trump Republicans are.”