By JOHN PRIETO

The midterm elections on Nov. 3 were a resounding rejection of the Trump administration and especially of its disastrous war on Iran and its economic impacts.

Voters turned out in near-record numbers for a midterm election. The electorate was younger and more working class than in previous midterms, and it included more people from the Black and Latino communities. The surge in the Black vote in the South was notable, especially since voters had to overcome the realignment of electoral districts and other efforts to suppress the vote by the Republicans.

The outpouring of voters was motivated in part by the events of the past year, in which millions of people joined protests in the streets to reject the administration’s violent repression of immigrants, its attacks on the livelihood of working people, its support of Israel’s genocidal wars, and its shameless corruption. In the weeks before the election, pro-democracy protesters in the South, led by Black students, organized marches to the polling places to challenge the threats by the Trump regime to the right to vote.

According to exit polls from NBC News: 44% of the electorate said that their vote was to express opposition to Donald Trump, 54% said they strongly disapprove of Donald Trump, 66% said he has worsened economic conditions, 89% said the cost of living was a crucial or major part of their vote. These are disastrous numbers for an incumbent government and the result was a rout the likes of which the United States has not seen since Watergate.

It is completely rational for working people to take pleasure in the downfall of this government, which has so demonstrably worsened their lives and made the corruption and flagrant authoritarianism of Trump and his allies in the service of its billionaire donors plain for all to see. Unfortunately, the respite from the anguish of this period that many people feel they’ve gained is liable to be shallow and short lived.

Trump and his cronies in the White House have already shown that they hope to renew their racist and reactionary policies. This was shown clearly by Trump’s insertion of white supremacist and jingoist Stephen Miller into the role of chief of staff. Miller is one of the chief architects of the administration’s crackdown on immigrants and its attacks on Venezuela and on fishing boats in the Caribbean under the guise of the “war on drugs.”

And in another sign that Trump is looking toward maintaining a hard stance in his policies, without any sign of compromise, Trump removed Vice President Vance from participating in “negotiations” with Iran and reassigned him to ferret out alleged corruption in Democratic Party-led cities. This followed Vance’s mentioning that the war against Iran was a major factor in the Republicans’ election defeat.

Despite the “blue wave” on election day, it appears obvious that most working people do not have solid expectations that the Democratic Party will be an effective counter to Trump, or that it will manage to fulfill its own candidates’ promises to raise living standards, provide quality health care, and end the wars in the Middle East. The same exit polls showing historic disapproval of Trump demonstrated that only 47% have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party.

What happened on Nov. 3 was not a ringing endorsement of the Democratic Party but instead a message specifically to Trump and the Republicans. This mistrust is well-placed; as we said in August, “[t]he list of crimes committed by the Democratic Party is too lengthy to recount.”

Right there committing those innumerable crimes have been Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, the presumptive incoming Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader. They are both committed to AIPAC, big tech oligarchs, and ICE. Hakeem Jeffries has made conciliatory remarks that many took to indicate an unwillingness to investigate and prosecute corruption. This comes after he met privately with Jared Kushner, one of the poster boys of Trump administration corruption, in August. Schumer has notoriously declared that his job “is to fight for Israel.” The changes which this midterm vote demonstrates a hunger for will not come at the hands of these odious middle-managers of imperialism. They are opposed to the very foundations of the promises made by Democratic candidates who won across the country.

From South Carolina to Texas, candidates who won in these “red” states generally campaigned on a platform of economic populism meant to address the real immiseration of the masses. James Talarico in Texas closed out his campaign going directly after Elon Musk as an oligarch trying to buy Texas. In Mississippi—probably one of the biggest upsets of the election—Democrat Scott Colom ran on a message of affordability with a viral ad that capitalized on an occasion in which his opponent, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, told working people to “pick another protein” in response to a question about the rising price of beef.

We know, however, that the Democratic Party is also beholden to the same moneyed interests as the Republicans. Crypto, AI, gambling and real estate interests contributed huge sums during this election cycle, and although the largest individual donors still trend Republican, the data shows that Democrats receive funding from the same entrenched financial interests and industry lobbying groups. Just because it is the “good cop” party of capital, doesn’t mean it isn’t a party of capital. At best, the Democrats will tinker around the edges and make minor reforms, much as they always have, but real fundamental changes to our exploitative and oppressive society will not come through them.

Further, we should be hesitant to see this as some kind of victory for “progressivism” writ large. While economic populist messaging was successful and many candidates did embrace a Bernie Sanders style opposition to “the billionaires,” Democratic candidates were at best silent on the issue of trans rights. Republicans spent over $150 million on anti-trans attack ads and revived the old strategy of trying to use anti-LGBTQ ballot measures to drive conservative and Evangelical turnout. Five states had anti-trans ballot measures on Nov. 3, and four of them passed them.

Many Democratic candidates who won their races campaigned against protecting trans rights. This was especially evident in Iowa where the gubernatorial, senatorial, and two congressional candidates loudly proclaimed their agreement with Republicans on so-called “gender ideology.” Just because anti-trans attack ads against candidates were not successful does not mean that there is not an audience for these reactionary positions, and the Democrats cannot be trusted to stand up and fight for what is right. They would prefer to silently redirect the conversation rather than confront reaction and defend our trans and LGBTQ siblings.

What working people across this country are hungry for is a real alternative. They want an alternative to the daily misery of rising prices and falling wages, to the brutality and inhumanity of the border regime, to the wanton destruction caused by imperialism, and to the rapacious looting by our corporate rulers. The path to that alternative does not run through one midterm election or through the Democratic Party. Until we stop relying on bought-and-paid-for politicians and NGOs and start relying on ourselves and creating our own mass democratic institutions, the feeling many felt after the midterm elections will remain merely a brief respite from the worst excesses of the capitalist class.

The path to a real alternative runs through mass democratic movements, where working people decide collectively what they want and fight for it on the basis of their own power. This will require the construction of mass coalitions in which individuals and a broad range of organizations can work together to achieve significant social change.

Millions of people pointed the way earlier in the year as they marched in the streets for democratic rights and against the roundups of immigrants. More recently, protests against data centers have reached into the heart of thousands of communities. And even more emphatically, the huge demonstrations and strikes in France, Spain, and many other European countries have provided a model of how protest movements in the streets can catch hold of popular consciousness and grow into massive mobilizations that shake entire nations.