Afrasianet - Saja Yasser - The U.S. midterm elections have left Republicans with little room to make up for the loss, as Democrats wrest control of the House and Senate, and Republican candidates have fallen in races that until recently seemed out of reach for their opponents.
In an op-ed for the New York Times , conservative writer David French points out that, according to estimates available at the time of writing, the Democrats were headed to win the overall popular vote for the House of Representatives by about 13 percentage points, a margin that compares to the 1974 election that followed the Watergate scandal.
He also cites Texas, where Democrat James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton in the Senate race, in a string of significant Democratic victories in a state where Democrats have not won a statewide race since 1994.
The U.S. debate was not limited to the causes of defeat or campaign mistakes, but the question that exploded within the right was deeper: Has an election campaign faltered, or is MAGA's own influence reaching its limits?
A movement that stuck to its owner
The Wall Street Journal monitors the impact of the outcome within the most "MAGA" (short for "Make America Great Again") circles of loyalty.
From Florida, the newspaper begins with the story of local Rep. Meg Weinberger, who earned the nickname "Maga Meg" because of her closeness to U.S. President Donald Trump, before losing her seat to a Democratic candidate running in her first election, even though Weinberger spent more than $600,000 to about $53,000 for her opponent.
For a decade, MAGA was not just an election platform or a party wing, but a tightly knit political and cultural community around Trump, winning over segments that traditional party institutions felt had been neglected or misunderstood.
Hence its dilemma today: Trump was not only the leader of the movement, but its center of gravity and its unifying symbol. Many of its supporters therefore find it difficult to imagine what it would look like without him, even as they insist that the ideas it carried will not disappear with his departure.
After the results came out, the exchange of accusations within her camp began quickly, and the Wall Street Journal recorded discussions that blamed the war with Iran, the relationship with Israel and the Jeffrey Epstein dossier, while part of the conversation moved directly to the question of succession: Who can carry the banner of the movement after Trump?
Donald Trump distributes MAGA hats to supporters at a campaign rally in Texas (French)
Loyalty is a way of governing
French believes that limiting the crisis to a post-Trump MAGA future misses an important aspect, because the movement, in his estimation, is no longer separate from the Republican Party so that it can simply be removed from it.
During Trump's years of dominance, declaring allegiance to him became a prerequisite for ascension within the party, and loyalty was no longer measured by attitudes alone, but by his own style. The best way to prove loyalty to Trump, French writes, has been to act like him, attacking and provoking opponents and turning political disagreement into a constant test of loyalty.
Within the party itself, there are many indictments: pro-free Republicans blame tariffs , "America First" supporters point to the Iran war, and Latino Republicans criticize immigration policies, while each faction finds a reason to explain what happened.
But the common thread is that the party has spent years reshaping itself in Trump's image, until it becomes more difficult to separate the president's failure, the movement's failure, and the party's own failure.
"Cradles"
Conservative political commentator Erik Erickson chose a striking headline for his New York Times article: "I'm a Republican. We've allowed too many eccentrics into our party."
Erikson argues that voters did not ask for the opening of the border, for example, but rather more humane deportation procedures, and they wanted more attention to the burden of living and the economy rather than preoccupied with cultural confrontations and social media wars.
In his estimation, more traditional Republicans have paid the price for years of refraining from confronting currents that have swept along the party's fringes and then advanced toward its center.
What Erikson means by "eccentric" is not just a satirical description: it refers to specific figures and groups of Christian nationalists and the New Right with perceptions that go beyond traditional republican conservatism, some of which adopt anti-democratic positions or explicitly reconsider certain authoritarian models.
He cites financier Charles Heywood, who has expressed a preference for an undemocratic system of government, praised Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, and criticizes J.D. Vance for approaching these circles rather than distancing himself from them.
The future of MAGA
A single electoral defeat may not be enough to judge the end of a movement that has dominated the Republican Party for a decade, and its social and political base has not disappeared as it loses seats in Congress.
Did Latinos punish Trump and his party?
But the 2026 election did something else, taking the lid off a long-held dispute within the American right over what it means to be a post-Trump Republican.
Does he need a new "MAGA" without Trump? Or do he need to break with the legacy that the movement has left in his rhetoric, his candidates, and his political culture?
French concludes his article with a phrase that he believes MAGA has long derided: "Nature makes destiny." In his reading, the defeat was not so much a sudden break from the past decade as it was the result of what the party had accumulated during it.
Source: New York Times + Wall Street Journal
