Keith Duggan: Republicans begin painful process of picking apart bones of shattering defeat

With a new dawn came an unprecedented uprising in the United States midterm elections.US political leaders from both parties are coming to terms with a sudden and monumental reshaping of the landscape as the lights begin to go out on Donald Trump’s volatile and frequently terrifying reign.While the Democratic Party celebrated what veteran Maryland representative Jamie Raskin described as a “glorious day for America”, Trump and the incendiary radical-conservative movement he has led for a decade began to wonder what comes next.The US president was unexpectedly acquiescent on Tuesday night as old Republican certainties were wiped away in Kansas, South Carolina, Iowa and elsewhere.READ MOREOn Wednesday, he made an unexpected press appearance in the White House to mark the ceremonial raising of the final steel beam for the construction of the ballroom, the presidential project closest to his heart.[ Republicans turn on each other as midterm results sink inOpens in new window ]He praised the construction teams and spoke of future projects to come, as though oblivious or indifferent to the caning his party was still enduring – Mississippi may yet go the way of Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom.Chinese president Xi Jinping was, Trump said, “amazed when he looked at the structures”. He added: “And then we’re doing the arch, the beautiful – like the Arc de Triomphe and better, more beautiful.”The moment provided a bizarre if tidy bookend to Trump’s strange eve-of-election speech at the reflecting pool.Whether his arch will ever be built is now debatable, as Trump’s former political foes begin to frame this midterm defeat in language that crystallises the president’s diminishing hold over his party.“Let’s just be clear about what happened last night,” Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who ran against Trump in the 2024 primaries, said.“This is [as] close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country as we have seen probably in the last hundred years.”The good news for the Democrats began early on Tuesday evening and kept getting better. The Texas blue wave finally came, with James Talarico comfortably winning his Senate race and Gina Hinojosa ending Greg Abbott’s 12 year hard-right conservative reign.[ Midterm drubbing could prompt Trump backlash abroadOpens in new window ]Those wins were a comprehensive rejection of the $156 million (€139 million) Elon Musk – whose SpaceX operation is based near Brownsville – had poured into the state.Within hours of winning, Talarico was preaching a message predicated on co-operation rather than revenge. “I look forward to being a senator for all 31 million Texans, including Ken Paxton, including the Texans who didn’t vote for me.”It felt and sounded like a revolution driven not by the prevailing power structure of the Democratic Party, but by an organic new force. It included a newfound urgency by a cast of compelling new regional leaders who emerged from different backgrounds.A pastor in Kansas; a Paralympic basketball star in Iowa; a generationally talented seminarian in Texas; a paediatrician in South Carolina, all of whom ran on campaigns of economic equality, fairness, anti-corruption and a restoration of people-power at the heart of US politics.Abdul El-Sayed had to first defeat the weight of the Democratic movement in his primary campaign against Haley Stevens before being elected as the first Muslim to take his place in the US Senate by Michiganders.In New Mexico, Deb Haaland was elected as governor, the first Native American woman to hold that role.[ US midterm elections: Results from the House and SenateOpens in new window ]The remarkable thing is how quickly this new generation, along with presidential candidacy frontrunners like Jon Ossoff and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have come to sound like the leading voices of the Democratic movement.The results represent what Raskin described as a “massive, decisive – and let’s hope permanent – repudiation of Maga Republican politics, which is all about corruption and self-enrichment of the president and his family and his close friends, the conversion of the Department of Justice into an instrument of revenge and retaliation; this incredible prostitution of the government just for money-making purposes”.As Trump took refuge in his old world of development on Wednesday morning, his vice-president JD Vance had already posted a message blaming the Iran war for the massive collapse in Republican support.It was a blatant distancing from a president who has demanded absolute fealty. But Trump even seemed disengaged by that when asked about the 2028 presidential election.He has always touted himself as a “construction guy” at heart, so he knows: things fall apart.“Maybe he won’t run, I don’t know who’s going to run,” he shrugged. “But I can tell you as far as that war is concerned, I wouldn’t have done it any other way.” How we’re covering the US midtermsFollow Irish Times Washington Correspondent Keith Duggan and video journalist Chris Maddaloni in the final week of the campaign as they report from key battlegrounds and gauge the mood of voters across the US. More US midterm election coverage here.