The American system

Nov 05, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

Kaieteur News – A year ago, a man of depth shared a sentence about the U.S., political system. Amid the turmoil of Trump mania, and anxieties over the direction and future of America, an elderly American woman said to him: ‘we believe in the system, we trust in the system, and the system eventually works.’

It did in the 2026 U.S. midterms. This is why I still have faith in America, its processes, and the men and women who commit to fighting to retain the ideal of American exceptionalism, its divinely ordained role (Exxon and other American interests notwithstanding).

The 2026 midterms offered irrefutable proof that the system works. Because there are men and women in the judiciary, in the media, in the institutions, and in the power of the ballot-that stand against demagoguery, Jim Crow, and for a respected America.

I’m not impressed by the Democrats. Consider that an understatement. But, by God, I could neither identify with the Republicans, nor could I ever trust Donald Trump, when outrage multiplied. If ever there was a misplaced presence in the White House, it was Donald John Trump. A lifelong loser, who reimaged himself in a winner.

The fact that he went overboard, dragged his party down to defeat, reminds me of the profound lament of Auschwitz survivor, Primo Levi: it’s not the evil men at the top of the power pyramid; it’s the ring of men and women just below them, who uphold evildoing. If anyone thinks that I am thinking of, and comparing, Trump America to today’s Guyana, in this single aspect (chronic wrongdoing) they don’t know how right they are. (Part II soon: where this result leaves the PPP Government).

The system worked on November 3, 2026. Let it be remembered that Mr. Trump still has two more years. Plus, he still has a committed Congress for almost three full months. I look past Executive Orders and their almost unchallengeable power. I look at how the Democrats manage their new hold on power in the U.S. parliament. If they are wise, revenge should never be an agenda item, written or spoken, on the table of discussion. It may be asking too much of men and women of blood and passion, when the damage inflicted by President Trump is so mountainous, so galling, so piercing.

Even a Trump at his worst would be unable to claim cheating and doctoring of results. The magnitude of the midterm loss is just too massive. If there was cheating, then all of America is in foul territory.

One of the clues that indicated this interval of the Republican Party was almost over came in the form of the pre-election voting. The difference in percentages from the last midterms was staggering. The percentages on the upside were that large. Straight and simple. Also, straight and simple was the fact that coloured voters were voting for their present, their future, their lives and that of their children. There had to be reasonable, if not significant, numbers of White Americans who had had enough, just couldn’t take it anymore. Indeed, the system works. Because there are that kind of Americans. Asians and Hispanics trusted in Trump in 2024, with numbers to prove. But they, too, had had their fill of demagoguery and discrimination.

Oh, and one more: the hate and hostility that were so much in their faces, and also those of the more nuanced variety.

The next two years can be long, or they can be managed in the manner of patriotic men and women. The latter could be overly optimistic. There is the Donald Trump factor. Put a sick man in the chair, and there’s sure to be a real cluster, what Americans have accurately labeled SNAFU. The system in place corrects for what degraded to a riotous banquet of leadership run amok.

In closing, there’s this hope. The Democrats don’t get carried away by the euphoria of their victory, and the scale of it. They must focus on the issues that mattered to the voters. Vengeance is not one. For then what would they be, if not Republicans and Donald Trump in Democrat clothing? The system that worked so well in 2026 is waiting as that check and balance to the misuse of power, what is unamerican.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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