Western Cross-Currents: Cultural Populism vs Deep Architecture

Alastair Crooke, 7 Nov 2025

The starting gun for the US 2026 Midterms was fired this week with three consequential elections and a key re-districting poll held in California. The Democrats swept three major races (NY, NJ, VA) and won the re-districting proposition in California. Californian re-districting could give the Democrats a further five seats in the House.

But the lens by which to understand these events perhaps is better that of the last British general election: The governing party was both discredited and widely disliked. The British electorate wanted to deliver to it a resounding slap -- which they duly did. The problem was that electors did not like the alternative parties so much either. But to send the message, they had to vote for something. The Labour Party won a thumping majority, but no real mandate. Prime Minister Starmer, and his party (as it turns out), is as widely disliked as his predecessor.

Politics in the UK are broken for now. It is largely the same in France.

So, when the headlines say the Democrats ‘swept’ the races in the US, it likely reflects the same double-dislike that is evident in Europe. American Populists do not care for either Party’s ruling Establishment, seeing them as Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee -- a plague on both your houses is their riposte. (The Democrats have their Populists too.)

This impasse is not susceptible to a quick fix. The ruling stratum is deeply embedded and owned by mega-donors precisely to keep it that way.

Nonetheless, the populist dynamic in the US is irrefutable, and may soon evolve beyond the reach of donor speech repression structures.

The primary reasons for this impasse are deeply structural, as well as ideological.