After the US elections on November 3, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described the results as “not just a tsunami, but something more like the meteor that struck the Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs.” His words brilliantly captured the profound transformation for which these elections had laid the first groundwork.
In December 1799, George Washington fell seriously ill. His doctors resorted to bloodletting, causing him to lose more than a third of his blood. Thus, the founder of the republic died not from the illness itself, but first and foremost from its treatment.
Trump did much the same to America. He rose to power at a moment of political and institutional vacuum, confronting a deep crisis in the country. Trump understood the illness better than his opponents and proposed dismantling Washington's entrenched party bureaucracy. But he went too far in treating America's crisis: he overdid the dismantling of the elites and bureaucracy. Rather than renewing them, he shattered them without offering an alternative. As corporate influence deepened and ethical constraints weakened, the haemorrhaging of bureaucratic elites, coupled with Trump's failure to replace them, ultimately squandered his chances, just as excessive bloodletting had cost America's founding father his life.
The punishment was devastating! Kansas had not sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly a century, and then it did. The same happened in Iowa, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina, South Carolina and even Texas.
While the president had asked voters to imagine him on the ballot, they granted his wish with an enthusiasm he himself could hardly have anticipated. More important than the punishment, however, was what followed. After Trump declared that he was “fully prepared” to work with Democrats, the markets celebrated for one reason alone: he would leave peacefully.
That is both the genius and the curse of the American experiment! Roughly every four decades, crises shake its foundations to the brink of collapse. Yet, from one era to the next, America reinvents itself. Every age has its own state and its own leaders.
More importantly, America reinvents its elites! It ruthlessly wipes out the dinosaurs and unleashes new species of elites. As Carlota Perez put it: “Every technological revolution begins with a speculative bubble in the markets, which soon collapses, only to give rise to new institutions that govern a new era!”
In 1929, the agrarian republic came into conflict with the expansion of large-scale industrial production. Roosevelt's generation replaced Hoover's, and the social contract was transformed through the “New Deal.” In the mid-1960s, the generation of hippies and protesters emerged to reshape post-industrial America. Then, in 2008, high technology, digital platforms and accelerating globalisation hollowed out America's industrial heartland, concentrated wealth along its coasts, and left its elites in both parties bloated and decaying.
At that point, Trump represented an enormous opportunity to give the Republican Party and the republic itself a transfusion of new blood. The expectation was that he would turn the tables on the entrenched bureaucracy and the decaying elites in both parties! But he soon failed to produce alternative elites. More importantly, he failed to devise a modern strategy for America in the age of artificial intelligence, the biological revolution and beyond.
The Democrats learned their lesson in 2024. Their elder statesman, Obama, led the process of renewing the party's blood and clearing out its dinosaurs, from Clinton and Pelosi to Harris and Newsom!
In this wave, the Democrats brought new generations of young people, women and minorities to the forefront of political life. Women account for 42% of the party's representatives, compared with just 15% among their opponents. Meanwhile, Republicans became increasingly isolated in their ideological positions.
Thus, the renewal of the elites was not the result of victory; it was the reason for it. This picture may look promising, but it is also dangerous. Democrats must acknowledge that their victory was more a punishment of Trump than a triumph for an ambitious programme championed by the party's new elites.
A party that has won thanks to public sentiment must now produce an economic and political programme for America at a time when automation and artificial intelligence are devouring opportunities for traditional labour.
Many Democrats are already complaining that they find themselves in a state of overwhelming political disarray. This brings to mind Will Rogers' famous remark: “I am a Democrat, so I do not belong to any organised party!” It is not enough for Democrats merely to acknowledge the diversity of identities; they must also develop a comprehensive social programme that serves the interests of productive forces, businesses and the modern workforce.
For its part, following its clear defeat, the Republican Party is suffering from a glaring structural vacuum. It, too, needs to renew its blood and redefine the right, as well as the role of capital and the state in the age of artificial intelligence.
The November 3 vote was a circumstantial phenomenon shaped by prices and war. But America's crisis is not circumstantial; it is a deep-seated, systemic crisis. The economy is being rebuilt by artificial intelligence and modern, unfettered capital, while the modern state has nothing to offer but an antiquated and incapable political system designed for the industrial age.
Moreover, the new has not yet been born. The Democratic alternative remains in its embryonic stage, while the Republican alternative has yet to bear fruit. Instead, the crisis that began in 2008 is deepening across society as a whole.
Churchill is credited with saying that Americans always do the right thing, but only after exhausting every wrong alternative. America is still exhausting those alternatives. And that, as we have said, is both the genius and the curse of American chaos!
On the other hand, we cannot yet say that the direction of US foreign policy has settled or undergone any clear change. What will certainly change, however, are its instruments. Moscow and Beijing are interpreting the outcome as confirmation of what they already believe: that Washington's promises have a shelf life that expires no later than the next election. China will bet on time, while Russia will wager on the gap between a White House that strikes deals and a Congress that takes a tougher stance towards them and seeks to undermine them.
President Trump has grown accustomed to acting unilaterally, relying on executive orders. He will now be forced to make concessions to Congress, which controls the treasury and holds the power of investigation and oversight.
When the new Congress is sworn in, we will witness a defeated president who is nevertheless unafraid of another election, and who still holds the decision on whether to go to war with Iran. A deal may seem to Trump the more sensible option, but a decisive strike may prove more tempting.
History will most likely remember November 2026 as the beginning of the founding of America's third era.
Unless Democrats manage to consolidate their success by producing an economic and political programme, post-Trump Republicans will be waiting to challenge them! They, too, are drawing their own lessons and sharpening their tools. They may well become better prepared than Democrats imagine.
This is why we can understand why DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, appears to be a threat that frightens Trump and the MAGA movement just as much as it frightens Democratic leaders!
