Each Democratic win in America stirs hope in war-torn and impoverished countries. The relief is short, and the world should use it wisely.
Whenever the Republicans lose an American election and the Democrats win, people in the third world feel a flicker of hope. They live amid war, disaster, poverty and authoritarian rule. The calm that follows a Democratic victory is brief, yet it encourages everyone who loves peace, democracy and human rights. The US midterm elections of 3 November 2026 have produced exactly that feeling.
A vote cast in private
Millions of Pakistani Americans, many of them naturalised citizens, took part in the US midterm elections. Among them are the children of my friend Professor Ismail from Swabi in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Six members of his family voted. Neither the professor nor any of them knows who voted for which party or candidate. That is democracy, and that is civilisation.
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American agencies shape public opinion through strategy, but they do not bend it by force as they do in Pakistan. American voters back whichever of the two parties they like. Even parents can advise their children to vote for a different candidate, and nobody objects.
Why Americans turned against Trump
In November 2024, Americans elected Donald Trump because he promised to calm the wars in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. He also promised to fix their economic troubles. He did neither. Instead, he poured oil on a smouldering political crisis and turned it into open war.
Now that the results are almost complete, Trump has accepted defeat. He names the war with Iran and his support for Israel as the chief reasons the Republicans lost. I would add more. He helped remove a president in Venezuela and tried to impose his will on other countries. At home, he crippled institutions such as Voice of America and tightened immigration law. His tariff changes also hurt American trade. Together, these decisions made him look like a tyrant and handed his party a historic defeat.
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The Afghan question
Nobody should hide the truth about Afghanistan any longer. American intelligence agencies stood behind the fall of an elected government there, and they helped impose the Taliban, whom the world calls terrorists. The Democrats signed the Doha agreement, and the Taliban returned to power under Joe Biden. However, Trump has funded the Taliban generously, and he continues to do so.
Many people also say that Trump played a part in the clash between Pakistan and the Taliban government before the attack on Iran. In my view, the aim was to weaken the Muslim response to the Iran war, and the intelligence agencies largely succeeded.
For decades, Washington has also backed undemocratic forces, especially military establishments, across Central and South Asia. That is why, for the past fifteen years, democratic politics in Pakistan has been systematically paralysed.
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What comes next
We now wait to see what strategies the Democrats and Republicans will adopt before the next presidential election. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, America has been the one power able to sway the politics of the third world.
Yet no nation today will accept cruelty or coercion, and the world can no longer afford endless war. Every country wants peace and stability at home and abroad. Therefore, America and its spy agencies must abandon the politics of resistance, division and confrontation.
South Asian countries, battered by war, want peace and prosperity. Washington should show mercy to war-weary and poor nations rather than push the world towards another global conflict. Both Republicans and Democrats would gain from that.
