An Analysis of the US Election and Its Four Outcomes

What he says

An English translation of the talk, which is in Persian. It was made with AI from YouTube's automatic captions and may contain errors; the Persian transcript is authoritative. Click a timestamp to jump to that part of the video.

0:01 Hello. It's Wednesday, 13 Aban 1405, November 4, 2026. The US midterm elections ended yesterday, and the results were truly astonishing. They have been dubbed the "blue tsunami" or "blue wave," since blue is the color of the Democratic Party and red is the color of the Republican Party. In the US midterm elections, all 435 members of the House of Representatives, whose term

0:51 is two years, must be elected, and one-third of the Senate seats are up for election, since senators serve six-year terms. In some states, if a governor is due to be elected, usually for four-year terms, the governor is on the ballot too. In addition, each state usually has a number of local elections that it puts on the ballot, ranging from, say, the council of their county and district to larger offices, or sometimes referendums on their state

1:41 constitution, or many other questions. Because elections are run by the states, and within the states by the localities, the states usually put the questions, measures and choices they have within the state on the ballots every two years when elections are held in America, and they ask the people of the state. In this election, out of roughly 210 million registered voters (of course, censuses and other measures have sometimes put this number

2:32 higher or lower, but on average 210 million registered voters), about 125 million people took part in yesterday's election, which puts the turnout rate at about 59.5, close to 60 percent across America. After the votes were counted and the results announced state by state, in the House of Representatives, where either of the two parties needs 218 votes, half plus one, to hold the majority, that is, to pass the threshold of 218, so far

3:25 the Democrats have 230 seats, and it is expected that a few more seats will be added. So they hold the majority with a margin of 13 or 14 seats, and therefore the Democrats will choose the head of the House, the Speaker, and many of its committees, and they have the majority. But in the Senate, where no one predicted that the Democrats would even win, or if they did, then by a margin of, say, one seat, suddenly, you could say, because of the wave American society set off, at least seven seats that were held by Republicans were lost.

4:18 As the Americans say, they flipped. They turned, and the Democrats won these seats. As we speak, 54 Democratic senators have been elected out of 100 senators, so they also hold the majority in the US Senate. One state has not yet been decided, but the Republican candidate is ahead there, so the Democrats will stay at 54. In the state of Alaska, apparently it will take several days; their counting system is a special one. The Democrats are ahead there now, and if they win, they will have 55 seats. But even

5:09 with 54 seats they have a clear majority and a safe margin, although in neither chamber do they have two-thirds of the votes. Under the US Constitution, any law they pass must also be signed by the president, and if he does not sign it, he has in effect vetoed it. In that case the bill does not become law and goes back to Congress, and if Congress wants to pass it again, two-thirds of both chambers must vote for it so that the president can no longer veto it. So if, hypothetically, a party had two-thirds of the votes in both chambers,

5:58 or if there were bills that could win two-thirds of both chambers, then the president basically would not veto them, because he knows that even if he did, it would be useless; it would go back to Congress, be passed again, and acquire the force of law without his signature. Another point is that in the states where the governorship was also on the ballot, it was time to elect state governors, who are like presidents within each state. America is in fact 50 states, or better said, 50 countries, each of which has its own state Senate and state House of Representatives,

6:50 and the governor they elect has substantial powers, something similar to the president of the federal government. In any case, before this election, of America's 50 states, 26 had Republican governors and 24 had Democratic governors. But here too the election turned out remarkably, and as we speak, 28 states have elected Democratic governors and are now in Democratic hands. In Alaska, where it is neck and neck, if

7:39 the Democratic candidate for governor there also wins, this number will reach 29. That means the Democrats managed to take states away from the Republicans as well. This matters because the states will run the elections two years from now, and governors are important; they are supposed to oversee the running and coordination of the elections, as well as a number of processes within the state. But more important than these results, by which

8:31 the Democrats have in fact won these midterm elections, is that in some so-called red states, even deep red, strongly Republican states, the Republicans were defeated. Phenomena occurred like in the state of Texas, which is one of the largest states in America, one of the largest and a very important state. It had been in Republican hands, red through and through, yet not only did the Democratic senator win the statewide vote, but even the governorship was won by a Latina

9:22 Democrat, who unseated the Republican governor. Or in the state of Kansas, where for nearly 100 years a Democratic governor had not won, the Democrats won there too. Or in South Carolina and other states that were completely in Republican hands, things turned, and this clearly shows that in these states too people are dissatisfied with the Republican Party and its rule, and especially with Mr. Trump personally. Because it was seen repeatedly over these past three or four weeks that wherever Mr. Trump went, gave speeches, and supported a candidate, or wherever he had endorsed a candidate who

10:14 had come to compete, as it happened, that candidate lost. Let me also mention a side note: in the state of Michigan, Mr. Abdul El-Sayed, who was born in America to an Egyptian father and an American mother, is a Muslim and also a doctor, has won a Senate seat, the first Muslim senator ever elected to the US Senate. The really interesting point is that he was in a fierce fight, both in the primary against a woman who was a state senator, whom the AIPAC lobby, which belongs to

11:04 American Jews, supported, yet he managed to defeat his Democratic rival and come out on top, and in the final contest last night, against the Republican Party's candidate, to whom, as it happened, AIPAC money was also given and whom they supported, Mr. El-Sayed won again. He himself joked, "Thank you, AIPAC, for bringing about my victory twice in this state." Overall, in this election several members of the House of Representatives are also Muslims, from various countries, from Afghanistan to Somalia and elsewhere, and this too is a kind of record.

11:57 But the question is, why did Americans vote this way? Why did the blue wave, or blue tsunami, take off? Exit polls, that is, polling of people coming out of the voting precincts, conducted by various media outlets including the Associated Press and others, show roughly that Americans voted for Democratic candidates for four reasons. The first reason is the economy: the bad state of the US economy, which has gotten worse since Mr. Trump took office, the inflation rate, high prices, unemployment, and so on and so forth. The second reason, which is interesting, is that Americans

12:47 are worried about Mr. Trump's power grabs and see American democracy in danger from them, and they sought to rein in the power of Mr. Trump personally. So the polls show that Americans' second motive was defending their democracy. The third reason cited is Mr. Trump's misguided immigration policies. True, in the presidential election he attracted some people's votes with the immigration issue, but then came operations like the ICE immigration police he set up and unleashed on people. In Minnesota and Texas, people were actually killed, and

13:36 what he did has terrified Americans, the idea that a president is using the power of the gun, going after American citizens and trying to create fear, and so they went out and voted. But the fourth reason is the Iran war, which is also linked to the first one. A simple equation has formed in Americans' minds: that this war was pointless, and that Trump entered this war tempted and deceived by Israel. The polls show that more than 60 percent of Americans hold this view.

14:23 And this pointless war, which was also waged at the urging of a small country like Israel, is a factor that has driven up the price of gasoline and diesel in America, and is among the causes of people's number one issue, the economy, for which they blame Mr. Trump. Mr. JD Vance, Mr. Trump's vice president, also tweeted today, in effect naming this very war as the main cause of his party's defeat, and interestingly, Mr. Trump's son, Trump Jr., retweeted it, in effect endorsing what he said. In any case, with both chambers, the Democrats can fully control matters such as

15:12 the budget. They can haul Mr. Trump's cabinet secretaries and other appointees he installed and the Senate confirmed before Congress, question them, and even remove them, at the top of whom, it is said, stands Mr. Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense. They can investigate the performance of government agencies, summon them, pass laws on corruption that tie the hands of Mr. Trump and his gang, and many other things; we will have to see what happens over the next two years. But in my view, four conclusions can be drawn from this election. The first conclusion is that one must speak of the end of Trumpism. All that talk of MAGA,

16:03 Make America Great Again, and a kind of one-man, personality-driven rule has been defeated, judging by the way Americans voted. Even some Republicans are seriously having second thoughts, and it is not unlikely that, as happened in Nixon's time, if they see they will not win the next election, they will side with the Democrats in Congress, and then Mr. Trump's situation could even lead to impeachment, since that requires two-thirds of both chambers. The second conclusion is that one can say American democracy defended itself, and the wave the people set off caused not only

16:51 the Republicans to have second thoughts; Mr. Trump also immediately accepted the defeat, and the Republican Party will probably undergo many changes. The third conclusion concerns Israel, because Mr. Netanyahu in effect bet his money on the Trump horse during this period. He was very chummy with Trump, and now he is being harshly criticized in Israel, and with Trump weakened in America, Mr. Netanyahu's chances of forming a government have become far smaller. And the final conclusion, in my view, is this: today I was following how some of

17:42 the Islamic Republic's people started boasting, "We did it, we defeated President Trump, it's because we closed the Strait." That did have an effect, of course, but it really is not the whole reality in America. On the other hand, among the opponents too, those who had bet their money on the Trump and Netanyahu horse and were saying "Thank you, Bibi" and "Thank you, Trump," such as, for example, the monarchists or some other parts of the opposition, are in fact forced to have second thoughts and must rebuild their position on the political scene. The last question is whether the result of this

18:34 election will lead to war from now until, in particular, January 3, when the new Congress is due to begin its work. Will Mr. Trump come and wage the war intensely? Many say he may wage a two- or three-day war, but his ideal would be to reach an agreement so he can honorably say, "I reached a deal and, say, I succeeded." And frankly, given the wave American society has set off, and given that Trump is also a cowardly man, in the end it seems somewhat unlikely that he will throw himself into an adventure like a new round of war in the hope of victory, Iran and