The dust hasn’t settled quite yet on the 2026 midterm elections, but as the air clears it is obvious those concerned about the direction our country was going showed up to offer a powerful rebuke to Donald Trump, Christian nationalism and the MAGA movement.
Democrats are poised to have a majority in both the U.S. House and Senate unlike anything they’ve seen since the 2008 election when Barack Obama surfed a blue wave reacting to economic disaster, a war in the Middle East and an unpopular Republican president all the way to the White House.
Republican anti-trans scaremongering couldn’t keep James Talarico from absolutely destroying Ken Paxton to the tune of more than 1 million votes. Anti-Muslim scaremongering couldn’t stop Abdul El-Sayed from becoming the U.S.’s first Muslim senator. Name recognition could not keep the Darline Graham in office to rubberstamp Trump policies. Thirty years of incumbency could not protect Susan Collins from Democratic challenger Troy Jackson. Kansas had not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932, but that didn’t stop Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton from breaking the nearly century-long drought.
Josh Olds
Keisha Lance Bottoms will become the nation’s first Black female governor. Deb Haaland will be the first Native American governor, and Peggy Flanagan will become the first Native American woman in the Senate. Chris Pappas will be the first openly gay man in the Senate. Georgia, Michigan, Alabama, Washington and Wisconsin all elected trans or nonbinary folk at the state level for the first time.
All of Texas’ major elections went blue — governor, lieutenant governor, senator, attorney general, comptroller, railroad commissioner, land commissioner, agriculture commissioner — and Democrats will even take control of the Texas House of Representatives. It even looks possible that in deep-red Mississippi, which voted for Trump by a 24-point margin in 2024, a Democratic senator could prevail.
This is a cause for a celebration. Voters and candidates should take this moment and soak in this feeling. In the face of increasing authoritarianism and kakistocracy, Americans went to the polls and non-violently, democratically, and emphatically called for regime change in the United States.
But now that Democrats have power, what are they going to do with it? Because Democrats winning is not victory.
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
In the lead-up to the election, with polls showing favorably to Democrats, some Democratic leaders began to temper their messaging. Kamala Harris led the way, shutting down the idea of attempting to use their power to impeach Trump. Former House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi followed, criticizing both New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, calling the latter “this new person in Michigan” and saying “We’ll see if he gets elected.” Haley Stevens, who lost to El-Sayed in the Democratic primary, went so far as to give his Republican opponent an 11th hour endorsement.
And in the wake of overwhelming victory, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — leader of the House Democrats — gave an underwhelming response, downplaying the idea of holding the Trump administration, or even Trump himself, to account. Jeffries also has repudiated Medicare for All, a key progressive policy priority that would save more than 100,000 lives per year and cost $1 trillion less than the current system, and shown a willingness to accommodate Trump’s inner circle.
“Establishment Democrats are interested in holding power, not doing anything with it.”
Democratic leadership seem to indicate a desire to go back to their politics as usual, keeping the same leadership and modus operandi that led to Trump in 2016 and Trump’s resurgence in 2024. They are actively speaking against the people and policies that energized the national campaign that led to the big, Blue Wave. Establishment Democrats are interested in holding power, not doing anything with it.
The danger for Democrats is that they may have learned all the wrong lessons. The blue wave wasn’t blue because we loved blue, but because it was the only option to counter a Christo-fascist regime of corruption and cruelty. If Democrats spend the next two years demonstrating they are just a respectable, palatable version of the same politics and policies voters have repeatedly rejected, they shouldn’t be surprised when, not if, MAGA reclaims power in 2028.
Learn from the past
And we’ve seen this before. In 2008, the last time Democrats held this much power, it lasted for two years until the 2010 midterms. Now to give Obama-era Democrats their due, two years is not a long time to unwind a nearly decade-long war or revive a failing economy, but the “Yes we can!” enthusiasm of the Obama campaign morphed into a “Maybe we’ll try” laxity that led to dissatisfied and disillusioned voters in 2010.
While Obama represented a fresh face in politics by virtue of his relative youth, skin tone and not being named Clinton or Bush, he continued many of the imperialist policies and cruel practices for which liberals have rightly lambasted Trump. In his two terms, Obama was dubbed “Deporter-in-Chief” by immigrant rights advocates, deporting more folks than Bush Jr. and Clinton combined. Obama also escalated the use of drone warfare, infamously bombing a Doctors without Borders site and assassinating a U.S. citizen.
Obama was voted in for hope and change, but we continued to get incessant warmongering, a middle class that felt forgotten and a political system bought off by the rich.
This failure of both political parties led to the rise of Donald Trump — who promised to be an anti-establishment president who would “drain the swamp,” putting restrictions on lobbying and imposing term limits on Congress. Trump said he would run the government like he ran his businesses, showcased by the carefully curated reality TV persona he’d crafted on The Apprentice. He also appealed to the white majority’s racial fears, pitting non-white immigrants as the cause of the nation’s woes, and pandered to white evangelicals by promising them political access and power.
“Democrats (and Republicans!) had a chance to firmly repudiate a violent and cruel authoritarianism. They did not.”
After four years of Trump, amid a global pandemic, voters overwhelmingly rejected Trump and his policies. Democrats took control of the House, Senate and the presidency, despite an attempted insurrection on the day the new government was sworn into office. Democrats (and Republicans!) had a chance to firmly repudiate a violent and cruel authoritarianism. They did not.
They had four years to bring Donald Trump to justice. Four years to clean house of his corruption. Four years to demonstrate that an attempted coup, an attack on the peaceful transfer of power and the systematic undermining of American democracy would have consequences. Coming out of a global pandemic that reset so much of our social system, we had the option to return to normal or realize that “normal” was what led to all this in the first place.
And while Democrats did take steps toward accountability, every action along the way — from the nomination of Joe Biden to a refusal to swiftly prosecute Trump to a continuation of Trump policies — indicated a desire to return to a comfortable status quo. All of that led to Trump’s resurgence and the man who attempted to overturn an election was once again president, this time sans the establishment Republican checks and balances of his first term.
From winning to doing
It’s 2026. Democrats have been given another chance. They can use this moment to demonstrate that democracy is more than simply keeping the other party out of power. They can pursue affordability, address economic inequality, protect vulnerable communities, create a compassionate system of immigration enforcement and deliver the kind of material improvements that make people believe government can actually work for them — and they can do all of this while exposing the Trump regime’s moral and political corruption.
Or they can spend two years protecting the same political establishment, making compromises with the same powerful interests, writing strongly worded letters and offering robust condemnations that mean nothing, and then wonder why they lose in 2028.
Donald Trump is an authoritarian demagogue. The Republican-led Senate conceded most of their power to him. Trump has no intention of giving that back. He doesn’t believe Republicans lost because the midterms were a check on his power. He believes they prove his supporters want him alone in charge.
“If I were on the ballot, we would have won,” he told Fox News, “There was such love at those rallies … and we weren’t able to transfer the love to candidates.”
In Trump’s mind, his supporters don’t love Democrats or Republicans, just Trump. The repudiation of Republicans is, in his view, a confirmation of his supporters’ belief in his authoritarian rule. There are going to be vetoes. Lordy, there are going to be vetoes.
The only way Democrats can accomplish the agenda they’ve set out is to confront Donald Trump directly. The only hope they have is if Democratic leaders step down and allow more progressive, popular voices to lead. The only way they will hold on to power in 2028 is if, over the next two years, Trump and his regime and brought to justice for their crimes and corruption.
I feel like Charlie Brown lining up for the kick as Lucy holds the football. We’ve given Democrats one more shot at proving themselves. We’ve delivered them an unprecedented victory. Now it’s time for them to actually do what we sent them there to do. Will they pull the football on us? Only time will tell.
Josh Olds is a public theologian and pastor for those disillusioned with institutional church. He is the creator of the small-group video series “Year on the Mountaintop” and a featured contributor to Fostering Hope: A Prayerbook for Fostering and Adoptive Parents. Follow his work on Facebook or at JoshOlds.com.