Home » The weight of the war on the mid-term elections in the United States – Alessio Marchionna

The weight of the war on the mid-term elections in the United States – Alessio Marchionna

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The weight of the war on the mid-term elections in the United States – Alessio Marchionna

In five days, on November 8, mid-term elections will be held in the United States to renew the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate. Media forecasts are rather negative for the Biden administration and for the Democratic Party, which currently has a majority in both the House and Senate. Generally, the first mid-term elections after the presidential elections penalize the president’s party. Until a few weeks ago it seemed that the Democratic candidates might be doing a little better than expected, mainly due to the supreme court ruling that canceled the constitutional right to abortion, which could mobilize the progressive electorate and annoy some of the moderates .

But now this effect seems to have worn off. The vast majority of Americans are primarily concerned about inflation and a potential recession, and believe the Biden administration is not addressing the situation adequately. According to forecasting site FiveThirtyEight, Republicans will almost certainly take control of the chamber and have about a 50 percent chance of winning a Senate majority. So even the best-case scenario for the Democrats (maintaining control of the Senate) would leave Biden with limited reach in the next few years.

Commentators are beginning to wonder if a change of majority in Congress could affect US policy regarding the war in Ukraine. Various signs point in this direction.

Request for negotiation
As elections approached and the economic situation worsened, the Republican Party’s most isolationist foreign policy faction began to make itself felt, often fomented by former President Donald Trump and right-wing commentators like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. Republican leaders, in particular Senate party leader Mitch McConnell, remain in favor of aid to Ukraine (so far the congress has allocated $ 54 billion), but their position will tend to weaken over time, especially if the Trump Republican candidates will do well in the election.

See also  Ukraine seeks new weapons, US lawmakers advocate sanctions against Russia

In mid-October Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican who will most likely be the next speaker in the house, said that in 2023 “Americans will face a recession and will not write Ukraine a blank check.” In the same days, similar signals came from the Democrats. On October 24, a letter was released in which thirty party MPs ask Biden to change his strategy on the war in Ukraine. MPs, who are part of the party’s progressive wing, say economic and military support for Kiev should go hand in hand with diplomatic negotiations with Moscow to bring about a ceasefire.

Both McCarthy and Democratic MPs have withdrawn their statements, but the fact remains that public opinion on Ukraine is changing, especially among Republicans: a Pew research center poll revealed that 32 percent of them the United States is providing “too much” aid, down from 9 percent in March.

Unsurprisingly, Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to exploit political divisions in the United States. During a speech on October 27, he addressed the conservatives in Western countries directly, drawing on the issues dear to their right-wing politicians and voters: “There are at least two Westerners,” Putin said. “One is that of traditional, mainly Christian values, to which the Russians feel close. But there is another West – aggressive, cosmopolitan, neocolonial – which acts as a weapon of the neoliberal elite and which seeks to impose its rather strange values ​​on the rest of the world ”.

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