Midterm elections: a bitter battle for soul of America

With lingering questions about Joe Biden’s fitness for office and Trump-supporting candidates gaining ground in key states, the Democrats have a real fight on their hands, says Sarah Baxter

THE husband of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, was attacked with a hammer at T the couple's California home last Friday. "Where is Nancy?" Paul Pelosi's assailant asked, echoing the chilling threats issued by January 6 rioters at the Capitol. It would be comforting to brush off the assault as the act of a lone, deranged conspiracy theorist, but the callous response from Republicans has been shocking.

Violent, extremist rhetoric has made deep inroads into the formerly upright Grand Old Party (GOP). With less than a week to go until next Tuesday's midterm elections, Republicans are in thrall to Trumpism in a way that seemed scarcely imaginable after the man himself, Donald Trump, lost the 2020 presidential election and then set about inciting an insurrection. Democrats fear the midterms could be a "red wave" election, brutally terminating President Biden's legislative ambitions.

It is not just Don Jr who has been milking the assault for laughs by retweeting a "Paul Pelosi Halloween costume" of underpants and a hammer. As his father toys with another run at the White House in 2024, rivals for the nomination have been cynically copying the elder Trump's abrasive style of politics.

Glenn Youngkin, who was elected governor of Virginia last November, was supposed to point the way to a more sensible, post-Trump future in which the GOP took a robust stand on culture war issues but recognised Joe Biden as the legitimate US president and kept their distance from his predecessor's vast, vanity-fuelled election conspiracies.