America’s silent progressive majority is shunning Trumpian politics for a more collective agenda

The world heaved a sigh of relief this month when the feared “red wave” of Republican victories in the US midterms failed to materialise. While the Republicans took the House of Representatives by a narrow margin, the Democrats held on to the Senate. 

American voters seemed to reject Republican extremism and hypocrisy, denying victories to the many Donald Trump-backed candidates who had lied about the outcome of the 2020 election and called into question fundamental democratic principles.

To be sure, there is always a danger of misreading an election outcome, given the complexity of factors motivating individuals’ votes. But from my perspective, the average rational voter will have recognised the Democrats’ historic successes from the past two years. 

Thanks to US President Joe Biden’s recovery bill (the American Rescue Plan), the United States had the strongest recovery of any of the world’s advanced economies, reducing childhood poverty by almost half in the space of a year.

Biden also oversaw the passage of the first major infrastructure bill in decades; America’s first major legislative response to climate change, the Inflation Reduction Act; and a major industrial policy bill, the Chips and Science Act, which explicitly recognises the government’s key role in shaping the economy. And these landmark bills all passed despite a historically unwieldy Congress.

Nor were Biden’s accomplishments limited to legislation. 

He appointed the first black woman to the US Supreme Court, and he issued executive orders to alleviate student loan debt, to improve antitrust enforcement, and to update financial regulations for the era of climate change. 

He brought America back into the Paris climate agreement and made notable gains in restoring American leadership on the world stage. 

Though he has gotten very little credit for it, history will likely show that his management of the Russia-Ukraine issue has been masterful.

Now that the American electorate appears to have rejected Republican extremism, some will argue that Biden should tack right to capture the elusive middle. But that is the wrong way to read the 2022 midterm result, because the electorate is not seeking some kind of Solomonic splitting of the baby.

Consider the issue of abortion. It is not as though America’s “middle” came out and said, “Draw the line at four and a half months, with exceptions for incest but not for any other cases of rape.” Whatever their beliefs about abortion – no one is enthusiastic about it – Americans have consistently signalled a general agreement that the decision should be left to the woman, not the government.

Centrism is the wrong approach to most other big issues facing voters. 

It is not left-wing extremism to note that the American economy has not been serving most Americans. And the sense of injustice is compounded by the fact that we should be doing much better than we are. 

The US is an extraordinarily wealthy country, and far wealthier than many other countries that are providing better living conditions for their citizens. America’s failures are a matter of choice.