The Democratic Party's sweeping victory in Tuesday's midterm elections stunned even the most optimistic strategists. The party flipped the Senate, the House, and five governorships, including long-shot wins in Republican strongholds like Texas and Kansas. What was once whispered as a possible Blue Wave turned into a full-fledged Blue Tsunami, and few, if any, political analysts predicted the scale of the rout.
But beyond the numbers, there's a deeper lesson that both parties seem determined to ignore: we were all wrong about President Trump. Both Democrats and Republicans wildly exaggerated his political power and influence. The GOP saw him as an electoral asset; Democrats saw him as an existential threat. Both were suffering from a form of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), a term Republicans coined to describe those who blame everything on Trump. Sometimes, the shoe fits.
The most obvious reason for the Republican defeat was voter backlash against Trump. He encouraged his base to treat the election as a referendum on himself, and voters obliged. "I don't view it as a hit on me," Trump told Fox News on election night. "We've had the greatest two years in the history of the presidency." That statement, delivered as returns showed a Democratic landslide, underscored his refusal to accept responsibility. He was echoed by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who praised Trump's achievements and accused Democrats of suffering from TDS. In reality, Johnson's own TDS blinded him to the damage Trump inflicted on the GOP.
Not all Republicans fell for the trap. One operative noted that Trump "was ignoring what the voters were caring about" — affordability, jobs, and healthcare. Trump seemed fixated on Washington's political theater and personal grievances, not the kitchen-table issues that decide elections. That disconnect, more than anything, cost the GOP its majorities.
But Democrats had their own version of TDS. Many, including this writer, feared Trump would attempt to overturn the election, just as he did in 2020. He spent the past year spreading false claims about election integrity, and on Election Day, White House officials posted messages threatening to arrest noncitizens who tried to vote. Yet federal agents did not swarm polling places, and Trump stated he was "absolutely willing" to accept the results. The democratic system held, and the dire predictions of authoritarian collapse proved unfounded.
That fear—that Trump's rise signaled the end of the American experiment—was another form of TDS. It assumed the nation was irredeemably racist, sexist, and homophobic, and that our republic had lost its way. This week's results suggest otherwise. Voters, even in red states, rejected the politics of division and embraced candidates who campaigned on hope and unity.
Consider the races in Michigan and Texas. Trump repeatedly called Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed a "jihadist," and Vice President JD Vance suggested Texas candidate James Talarico was gay and "obsessed" with transgender children. Both El-Sayed and Talarico won decisively. Talarico's campaign slogan, "Love Thy Neighbor," directly challenged Trump's politics of disdain—and it worked. The hatred was there, but it fell on deaf ears.
Even some Republicans see the writing on the wall. David Holt, the Republican mayor of Oklahoma City and a former George W. Bush administration official, wrote that his party had become "morally and intellectually bankrupt" by hitching its wagon to Trump. He called for a return to principle: "It's time to make America good again."
The country was always good. We just lost faith in it for a while, because Trump deranged us. The fever has broken, and perhaps both parties can now focus on what actually matters: governing.
Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at the University of Pennsylvania and serves on the advisory board of the Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest. He is the author of "Schooling Citizens: How Education Can Save Our Democracy," forthcoming from the American Philosophical Society Press.
