Well Played America. Well Played.

Yesterday (6/11/18) the US held its mid-term elections.

Now America is a country that has A LOT of democracy.

It's national government actually has three branches. Two of which are directly elected; the Executive and Legislative.

The most famous is probably the Executive. This is essentially the President who serves a four year terms.

The Legislative branch is Congress. This itself is divided into two chambers.

The lower chamber is the House of Representatives. Elected members there serve two year term. The mid-term elections are really about electing members of the House of Representatives.

The upper chamber is the Senate. Elected members there serve six year terms. However just to confuse everyone the start and end dates of those terms are staggered. So every two years one third of Senate seats are up for re-election.

That is just the Federal level. There is also the State level.

Elections at this level vary from State to State. Technically there are only 46 US States. The other 4 choose to define themselves as Commonwealths.

Generally speaking though each State has its Governor. This is essentially the President of the State. They also have their own elected legislative branch.

Aside from Governors and members of the State Congress at the State level people are also able to elect a host a public officials. Such as Judges, Prosecutors, Attorney Generals and Police Chiefs/Sheriffs.

Then there is the local level. Here people are able to elect members of local councils and a host of other local public officials.

One of the stories to come out last night election was the defeat of Kim Davis. In her effort to be re-elected as the County Clerk for Rowan County in Kentucky.

In most advanced democracies no-one knows what a County Clerk is. They certainly don't get to elect them. It's just another civil service job appointed by other civil servants.

Alongside choosing representatives and public officials US voters are also able to pass laws directly.

Last night in Florida voters passed Amendment 4 which restores voting rights to convicted felons. Whatever any elected officials in Florida feel about that doesn't matter. Voters have already made the decision for them.

Also last night in California voters rejected Proposition 6 which would have lowered state taxes on gasoline. So if any elected officials in California want to lower gasoline taxes voters have already decided that they can't.

The reason why the US has these different branches of government is so they each provide a check on each other. To prevent any one becoming too powerful.

So Congress can pass a law but the President can veto and refuse to sign it. The President can nominate someone to a public post - such as Judge to the unelected Judicial branch - but Congress can refuse to confirm them and block the appointment.

Therefore almost by design the President is supposed to represent one political party while another political party is supposed to have a majority in Congress. Although it must be said there are many elements of modern US politics that the Founding Father's did not intend when designing this system.

Midway through any government term voters have a tendency to get a bit fed up. So mid-term elections have traditionally been an opportunity for voters to give a little bit of a shove to the incumbents who are not themselves up for re-election.

Two years in there are certainly a few things that this current administration needs to be nudged into doing.

For example the US still hasn't gone through the truth and reconciliation process. Much needed to repair the racial divisions opened by the Democrats and their 2014 Black Lives Matter campaign.

Also the Democrats have still not been punished for their attempts to rig the 2016 Presidential Election. Hillary Clinton, Loretta Lynch and James Comey have still not been prosecuted. While Rob Rosenstein has not even been removed from his post.

Instead the Republicans have joined the Democrats in supporting the investigation of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller. As it was intended to do this has succeeded in binding America to much of the failed foreign policy of Barack Obama which voters rejected in 2016.

To compensate the current administration has been forced to double down on the deranged ideas of Neo-Conservatives such as John Bolton,

John Bolton was one the main architects of both America's 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As part of a bulldozer strategy of regime change across the middle-east. From the Mediterranean to India.

Even under a Republican controlled Congress John Bolton couldn't get confirmed as US Ambassador to the UN. Eventually even George W. Bush realised he was a disaster and got rid of him in December 2006.

Twelve years later Bolton is back from the political dead and still trying to push his mad agenda. Despite all the evidence that it is clearly not in America's interest.

The Democrats were hoping to harness this usual voter dissatisfaction to create a wave of support. Sweeping them to power in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. From there they would impeach President Trump.

Before presumably building a Reich that would last for a thousand years.

Voters did indeed give the Democrats control over the House of Representatives. The lower chamber.

However at the same time voters imposed a check on the power of the House of Representatives. By increasing the Republican majority in the Senate. The upper house.

I think this is the first time in about 100 years that the party of a sitting President has managed to increase their majority in the Senate at a mid-term election.

What this means is hard to predict.

The Democrats seem to be indicating that they will use their control of House committees to continue to push the Mueller agenda. However by most accounts Mueller's investigation is at an end. He just didn't want to announce that he's come up empty right before the mid-terms.

So it may well be that Mueller's investigation ends in December, during that holiday period when no-one's paying much attention. Meaning that it will all be over before the Democrat House majority even takes up its seats in January.

Although I think it's pretty clear that Mueller is not behaving in a politically impartial manner. So might be tempted to drag things out.

The result though is most likely to mean more political deadlock with Democrats in the House trying to block Republicans in the Senate and vice versa.

Which certainly falls far short of the building of a new Reich.

15:40 on 7/11/18 (UK date).