America is tired of the name-calling and culture wars

While the massive, historic achievement of Democratic candidates and voters in the US midterm elections is still being celebrated, pundits and politicians are already drawing conclusions about this unprecedented blue wave.

In elections where Democrats flipped a Republican-dominated Congress, five state governorships, and 12 state legislative chambers – and results are still coming in for some races, including for US Senate seats in Alaska and Mississippi – it’s clear that something has changed.

The elections, powered by the grassroots activism of citizens like the No Kings movement, were a clear repudiation of Trump and MAGA. They also show the importance of Democrats running in every state, red and blue, even when outspent by Republicans, to demonstrate that all voters matter to the party. But these midterm elections have told us more than that too.

Americans value their Constitution and their voting rights, and they used their votes to make that clear. Although voter turnout wasn’t as high as in a presidential year, it was the second-highest turnout in a midterm election (2018 was the highest) and in many states set records.

The turnout was fuelled by African-American voters, angered by Supreme Court decisions and local legislators undermining their voting rights; Hispanic voters, outraged by the violence and illegality of the Trump regime’s mass deportation policy and out-of-control Immigration and Customs Enforcement; younger, first-time voters of all ages, and voters who sat out the 2024 elections.

These voters, aided by voting rights advocates and the federal courts, mostly overcame the voter suppression efforts of Trump, his Department of Justice, and Republicans at the state level. In case after case, Trump had tried but failed to seize voter information and ballots, remove voters from the rolls or intimidate them at the polls.

The 60 million early voters who made it clear they would not be deterred set the scene for election day. Black students in North Carolina marched miles to vote after local officials closed their campus polling sites. And Trump’s most significant effort to manipulate the election outcome, through gerrymandering House of Representatives districts, backfired.

Americans also don’t like corruption, the expansion of data centres, or their country waging war on Iran. Many voters see these issues as interconnected. The enrichment of Trump’s family, and his associates, such as tech billionaire Elon Musk, are all costs that ultimately fall on voters, and the cost of living remains their greatest concern.

The connection between corruption and the cost of living was also identified by reformers who overturned authoritarian regimes in Hungary and Serbia. While Trump’s tariffs and war in Iran are driving up costs for consumers, farmers, and small-business owners, he continues to champion these policies that benefit him, oil and gas corporations, major technology firms, and corporations he exempts from his tariffs.

The culture war politics that Republicans have pursued since the 1980s and which Trump has perfected didn’t work this time. For decades the right wing in the US has won election after election with false accusations and juvenile name-calling. This debasing of meaningful, civil political discourse has divided and damaged the country.

But labelling Democrats as socialists or communists or using Islamophobia or transphobia didn’t work in 2026. Progressive Democratic candidates like Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed effectively countered slurs on his religious beliefs and ethnic heritage and won his Michigan race by seven points. American voters are sick and tired of the culture wars, which have done nothing to improve their lives.

Contrary to what some evangelists might have us believe, the right doesn’t own Christianity either. Americans of faith, especially African-Americans, have long been Democratic candidates and a crucial constituency. But since the 1980s, white evangelical Protestants have framed voting Republican as part of their religious identity, and Christian nationalism is advocated by Trump officials, such as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

But this year, Democratic candidates Senator-elect Adam Hamilton of Kansas and Senator-elect James Talarico of Texas put their Protestant faith at the centre of their political campaigns and commitments. And the first American-born Pope criticised Trump’s immigration policies and Iran War, both defended by the Catholic Vice President JD Vance, as violations of church teachings. Pope Leo voted from abroad, as did I and many other overseas US citizens.

The MAGA vision of the country as white, patriarchal, and heteronormative was rejected in favour of candidates representing the diverse, multicultural society that is the United States. There were so many historic firsts: the first African-American and Indigenous American women governors (Georgia, New Mexico), the first Indigenous women US senators (Minnesota, and possibly Alaska), the first openly gay male US Senator (New Hampshire) and the first Muslim US Senator (Michigan). The number of working-class and labour union members of Congress will double. Over 100 Democratic women will serve in the House of Representatives, and transgender and non-binary candidates won from Alabama to Wisconsin.

A generational shift in American politics is underway. The youth vote always matters, and this year it appears 66 percent of voters under 30 voted for Democrats. A 38-point swing to the Democrats by 18-29-year-old men, who had voted for Trump in 2024, was critical to what some are calling ‘the Gen Z blue wave’.

Moreover, winning candidates were often younger than the politicians they are replacing, with prominent victories among Gen Z and Millennial candidates. This isn’t just a demographic shift, but a shift in political priorities and style. Again and again, they sought to build bridges and big coalitions among Democrats, Republicans and independents as a way forward.

Of course, these election results are only the beginning of restoring peace, the rule of law, and good governance in the United States. Democratic candidates campaigned for ending the US ‘forever wars’ including in Iran and the abuses perpetrated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and for government action on health care, housing, childcare, public schools, the environment and climate.

They also advocated for political reforms, like bans on stock trading in Congress, term limits, Supreme Court reform, and getting big money out of politics. Voters will be pressuring the new Congress to take action to address the nation’s fundamental social and structural problems, and to hold Trump and his enablers to account. At the same time, many of us are appreciating this moment and this victory, we are readying for the next step in transforming the country.