Trump isn’t just facing a backlash. He is caught in something much bigger than that

October 30, 2026 — 2:00am

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Look at this political moment a certain way, and you can see the establishment coming back to life. The most anticipated case is next week’s US midterms, whose polling looks severe enough for the Republicans to have commentators musing the end of the Trump era. Presidents almost always get a whacking in the midterms, of course, but Donald Trump seems on course for a historic one. Historic enough to return not just the House to the Democrats, but the Senate, which was frankly meant to be unthinkable. That’s on the cards because suddenly Democrats are in potential winning positions in places as red as Texas and Kansas.

But if the establishment is finding comfort anywhere, it will be in the Democrats’ numbers. That party, you will recall, is facing its own insurgency in the form of avowedly left-wing candidates – occasionally self-identified democratic socialists – who dispatched the Democrat establishment in some high-profile primaries. Now we have a spread of Democrats the political coverage variously designates as either “progressives” or “moderates”. And right now, the polling is showing that the moderates are significantly outperforming the progressives. Put another way, the progressive candidates currently seem a drag on the Democrat vote. If they win, it will be because the Democrats had enough margin for error. The closer you are to being the establishment candidate, the better your chances seem.

Now look to Britain, where gravity seems to have taken hold of the insurgents. A suite of polls this week has Reform sinking to third........

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