President Donald Trump’s reaction on the day results were declared in the recently held US midterm elections was surreal. As the night of November 3 in the US went on it became clear that the Republican Party had suffered a massive defeat which had led to it losing control of both the chambers of the Congress. Unlike in the aftermath of the 2020 Presidential election when he outrightly rejected the result, this time around he readily accepted it. Ignoring the fact that he had thrown his might in the last stages of the election campaign he implied that he could not be held responsible for the Republican losses. Going further, he asserted that the result would have been different if he was on the ballot. Ironically he did not realise that this was an admission of political failure because a leader has to have coat-tails which his party candidates can use to take them to electoral success. But all this was par for the course for Trump.

What was surreal was his action on November 4. That day he took a tour of the Grand Ballroom that he is having constructed in the White House. The media accompanied him even though he claimed that was unintended. Trump extolled the Ballroom for its safety. He said it was designed to be bullet, missile and drone proof and that helicopters could land on its roof. He emphasised that it would be the........

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