A large nail for a gasbag.

The midterm elections in the US, held 2 days back, have given Republicans total control of the Congress by giving control of the Senate as well as increased seats in the House. Republicans have a lock on the House by gerrymandering in the states they control, thus ensuring victory for anyone the party puts up as candidate. Since every state, regardless of size, gets to elect 2 senators the population cannot be divided in such a manner as to ensure victory for any party. Hence, to gain control of the Senate by a turnover of 7 seats is a big victory for the Republicans. However, this time 21 Democrats were up for reelection as opposed to 15 Republicans which means that the Democrats were risking more upsets while in 2016, 24 Republicans seats will be up for contest as opposed to 10 Democrats which will give the Democrats a chance to overturn the loss. The right wing Supreme Court helped Republicans to disenfranchise many black and poor voters by demanding strict identity checks for voters and young people, who tend to vote Democrat, did not turn out. Since Obama was elected the Republicans have refused to cooperate with him on anything, resulting in total gridlock. They even shut down the government last year. In the party system of government, as in India, the prime minister is thrown out if his party loses but in the US the president is elected independently of the Congress. The Republicans opposed everything that Obama did, even at the expense of making the economy worse, but were successful in making him responsible for paralysis of the government. Some think that polarisation will get even worse now and no work will be done. Others are hoping that there will be more cooperation between the parties because with total control of the Congress the Republicans will be blamed for any gridlock. They can ill afford to do that because 2016 will coincide with presidential elections which encourages young, Hispanic and black voters to turn out in much larger numbers and they tend to vote for Democrats. As for Obama, he will not be standing again so what is he going to do? He is so unpopular that most candidates of his own party asked him to stay away. He has nothing to lose personally but what he does in the next 2 years could affect the chances of the next Democratic candidate for president. Obama won by blaming George W Bush for everything that was wrong with the economy. Is he going to leave the same legacy for his successor? He is making excuses for the drubbing but he is definitely to blame. We will be happy to see the back of this anti-Indian gasbag who supplies weapons to Pakistan and bends over to China.