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The writer is a political, security and defence analyst. He tweets @shazchy09 and can be contacted at shhzdchdhry@yahoo.com
All 435 members of the US House of Representatives are up for re-election every two years on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November. This has been the cycle since 1872. No one takes their position for granted; they must perform to their constituents’ satisfaction to retain their seat in the House. Voters can evaluate a Member of the House frequently, and the Representative is beholden to his voters to stay in office, turning democracy into a mutually beneficial and dependent relationship. The elected representative forwards the political preference that his voters support – conservative (Republican) or liberal (Democrat). Democracy does not come in as tight a structure as this. That also ensures that the roots of it remain as solid through centuries.
One-third of the 100-member Senate is up for election every two years. This ensures institutional continuity of the political and legislative governance, which is meant to enable or control the functioning of the Executive Presidency. Most appointments by the President must be ratified by the Senate. All such appointees are answerable to Congress, where both Houses can summon their presence in the committees created to monitor, investigate and recommend policy in respective areas of governance. In the American system, the Senate has a relative primacy over the House, though legislatively and in policy recommendation, as indeed fiscal authorisation, both Houses hold equal importance. Senators are elected by direct vote from their respective States.
The President has executive authority and, by design, is not controlled by the Congress. His hands can be tied through fiscal strangulation, but if the Republic must function, it will need some accommodation at all levels in the organs of the state. That is how checks and balances between the two arms are ensured. Similarly, the president has no control over the Congress, which is free to decide what it considers appropriate. Except that when it collides with the Executive, there are preconditions that must be met before it can proceed any further. Just as Congress can impeach a President, the President has the power of the Veto to stem Congressional assault on the Executive. The Veto can only be overruled if two-thirds of each House vote in its favour. The margins in the majority are rather restricted and impose a need for bipartisan concurrence to enable such unity of purpose for momentous decisions by Congress. States tend to vote their Senators with established hues in political preference; the concept thus of the Blue and the Red states.
Among the founding fathers of the US, and the framers of its Constitution, the powers of the President remained a constant concern. The famous refrain then was: Will he be more powerful than the Kings? Impeachment with stringent conditions was thus included in the Constitution, with responsibility for the process divided in clear terms between the two Houses. It was thus to be a transparent and consensual undertaking were it to ever materialise. No President in history left office on impeachment. Every time, the Senate acquitted impeachment. Nixon resigned, while Bill Clinton sought forgiveness in an address to the US citizens for allegations of misconduct and proven perjury.
The structure and the Constitution have been preserved over the last three hundred years, and followed to their optimal level, even if at times an administration has been alleged to violate the spirit. This has been more prevalent in the last decade or so, when questions have been asked of the motives of Presidential pardons to close friends, partners, and family members. The 2026 Midterm elections was the democratic repudiation by the people of such elasticity and manipulation in application of exceptional powers of the President. The success of the model is in its execution and repeated recurrence, even if absolute fidelity to the ethos and spirit of the Constitution remains wanting. There will always be a wave to level the distortions.
The midterms amply prove the probity and the durability of the American political system. Trump has faltered in his conduct of the presidency and in his policy choices, alienating large segments of society and stirring public opinion against him. The Republican Party, despite its control of Congress, failed to check the policy excesses of the Trump Administration. Both thus suffered at the hands of an angry electorate. The Republicans felt jaded and possibly did not turn out, while the Democrats were energised to reclaim the space which had been occupied by an Administration failing the larger sentiment. Wars, the cost of living, and an irrational resort to immigration, as indeed alienating decade-old alliances, were essentially the reasons behind the almost complete turnover of the political space in recent history.
Trump will be a lame-duck President. He still has his executive authority to run his functions, while a Democratic Congress might only mean greater gridlock and increased arbitration between the President and Congress. It will slow Trump’s domestic agenda, leaving him with a much more open field in foreign policy, where he will remain the sole arbiter. The Congress, now under the Democrats, can seek administration officials to appear before relevant committees, where the composition will now change to a Democratic majority. It can convey to the administration its collective wisdom but cannot bind the President to follow it.
Congress’ unique powers lie in its control of the finance bill and authorisation. There, too, the President has the power to prosecute war for sixty days after notifying Congress. Beyond that, it must seek Congressional approval to continue the war and fund it further. Congress can scrutinise the war expenditure retrospectively or condition it on restrictions. On Iran, Trump still has a choice to make. He may choose one final assault, essentially aimed at further neutralisation of Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Israel may join in to enhance its own purposes and objectives, leaving Iran and the region to tend to the aftermath.
The only rationality to the President’s impulse or preference can be invoked by the Republican Party, which still must continue its politics under figures like Vice President JD Vance. Relations with Israel and Russia will come under greater scrutiny, though never fully cease. Through appropriations, or their denial, a certain preference can be imposed by Congress in tweaking foreign policy positions. Over the next two years, while intimacy with Israel is rationalised, the US will be seen to become favourable to India in the Indo-Pak context – Democrats are known for such a preference. Will Pakistan then be left in the lurch under a rapidly fading Trump, a Democratic Congress, and Trump’s ascending successors in the Party?
