The midterm elections held on November 4th in a number of American states revealed that voters are now highly critical of the President Trump’s policies.
In New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherrill was elected governor. The majority of the Republicans had been confident in their candidate’s, Jack Ciattarelli’s, chances, but he failed to strike a chord even with Latino voters. And Republicans firmly believed in having already won their sustainable support.
However, the most significant defeat for Trump was faced in his hometown, New York City. The city elected as its mayor a Democrat, a socialist, and a Muslim, 34-year-old Zohran Mamdani, who has openly challenged the American president.
In California, a proposition to redraw electoral district boundaries was approved, enabling Democrats to increase their numbers in the House of Representatives by five seats.
The American press has started seeing the first predictions about the potential outcome of the 2026 US Congress elections scheduled for November. Some commentators suggest that, given the current public sentiment, Democrats stand a chance of conquering the majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Pro-democratic newspapers proceed with their vigorous campaign to demonise President Trump, striving to link him to the Epstein case, regarding the oligarch who trafficked underage girls. There are extensive reports that Britain’s Prince Andrew (the current king’s brother), implicated in the Epstein scandal, has been excommunicated from his royal duties and is being persistently urged to come to America to provide testimony before US Congressional Committees.
Democrats have even compelled the aging and ailing Biden to publicly pour cold water on his successor, accusing him of destroying democracy.
Since October 1st, 2025, the US Senate has been struggling with passing a budget. The stumbling block is a health insurance program, a deeply sensitive issue for ordinary Americans for whom the cost of living and healthcare is a top priority (nearly 70% of American households live from paycheck to paycheck and have credit card debt). This failure to pass a budget is known in America as a “shutdown.” As a result, government employees, including military personnel, do not receive their salaries, and the 42 million Americans who depend on food assistance cannot access their benefits. The shutdown has contributed to a sharp reduction in the number of domestic civilian flights and caused other disruptions to normal life.
The suspension of government work has officially become the longest in US history. Over 1 million federal employees have been deprived of their paychecks, while approximately 750,000 officials have been furloughed.
October 21st, 2025, marked an important day in the United States’ economic history: the Treasury Department published a staggering figure for the national debt, which has surpassed $38 trillion.
This colossal figure means there is approximately $111,000 of debt per every American. Not so long ago, back in July 2024, the debt stood at $35 trillion. Several prominent international credit rating agencies have downgraded the US government’s rating, citing the administration’s inability to “reverse the trend of substantial annual budget deficits and rising interest expenses.” These same agencies note that over the next 20 years, the American economy could collapse should the national debt exceed 200% of the GDP.
It is well-known that since the outset of the year, large corporations have conducted several rounds of mass layoffs, and now many small businesses are beginning to cut their staff. They are grappling with an array of problems: from inflation and the multi-week government shutdown to increasingly pessimistic consumer sentiment and harbingers of a recession. These small businesses employ over 40% of the US workforce and are experiencing financial distress more acutely than their corporate counterparts.
On October 15th, the English magazine The Economist pinpointed that the American stock market has been volatile lately amid escalating trade tensions, and there is every reason to believe that the enthusiasm around artificial intelligence could morph into an artificial bubble. This, in turn, could set the stage for another painful market correction, and the consequences of such a collapse “could turn out far more serious and global” than some economists warn them could be.
According to the magazine’s assessment, a crash in the AI market could wipe out 8% of American households’ wealth.
These factors, combined with a serious escalation in domestic political tension, are raising tangible concerns among many serious observers who emphasize that the backdrop of America’s current decline is the word “fight” being placed in the centre of the rhetoric of many politicians, both Republican and Democrat. Societal polarization and division are reaching dangerous proportions. For instance, as reported by the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat on October 28, 2025, “several states are now redrawing their constituency maps in order to rule out competition in elections.” The map for the November 2026 vote will be drawn in such a way that the outcome of the House of Representatives elections will be predetermined.
The Washington Post, on October 27, wrote about the intensification of “cross-party strife.”
In the United States, political scientists identify four main ethnic communities: Whites, African Americans, Latinos, and Asians. Recently, White Americans have grown apprehensive about the fact that the birth rate in other ethnic groups significantly exceeds that of those who founded America’s history. Conflict situations periodically spark precisely along these fault lines. And nobody speaks of contemporary American society as a “melting pot” anymore; instead, they write about how Whites run the risk of becoming a minority in their own country within 15-20 years. These demographic anxieties are exactly what some political scientists attribute Donald Trump’s substantial victory in the 2024 presidential election too. Almost all the newspapers have taken note of Trump’s statement to journalists aboard the presidential plane en route to Japan on October 27th that he would be happy to stay for a third term in the White House: “My figures are second to none in the whole history.” Trump has long been selling a $50 baseball cap with the inscription “Trump 2028.” In August 2025, while visiting the presidential residence in Washington, Trump showed European leaders a cap with the words “Four More Years” displayed in the White House gift shop.
All of the above-mentioned factors suggest that the conclusions of some observers about a simmering civil war in the United States may well prove to be justified.
Veniamin Popov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, PhD in History
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