IT has been a pretty good week so far for Maxwell Alejandro Frost. Age 25, highly personable, a musician and activist, he has just landed a job with a six figure salary. The cameras love him, and crowds cheer wherever he goes.

That is the upside to being Maxwell Alejandro Frost. The downside is that Mr Frost has made history as the first member of Generation Z to be elected to Congress.

As everyone who had to Google the term now knows, Gen Z, born 1997-2012, are the first group of humans to never know a world without the internet.

While no-one can know the full, evolutionary implications of this, I fear young Mr Frost, when he gets to Washington, is going to spend a lot of time explaining TikTok to his fellow Congressmen and women, whose average age is twice his and then some.

Frost’s success in the midterms was part of a generally good night for the Democrats. It was hardly happy days are here again, but it was also not the wipe out that had long been predicted.

At the time of writing the Republicans had taken back the House, as expected, and control of the Senate remained up in the air with at least one election rerun likely.

With inflation at a record high, crime soaring and other assorted woes, it could have been far worse for the Democrats.

The Republican takeover of the House will not be without consequences. It could have huge and negative implications for Ukraine, with the level of US aid to the country being called into question.

It will put the brakes on Biden’s legislative plans for the next two years, though it won’t be the first time that has happened to a President who has then gone on to win a second term (see Obama).

Mr Biden could find the next two years a slog for other reasons. Open season looks set be declared (again) on the President’s son, Hunter, and investigations set up into his business activities. In the past, Mr Biden has shown himself to be ferociously protective of Hunter, and can be expected to come out swinging again in his defence.

Biden senior could be dragged into hearings about his son’s business interests as well as becoming the subject of inquiries in his own right. A detailed look into the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, for example, could generate a lot of bad headlines for the Biden administration in the run-up to 2024.

What the midterms have failed to do is clear some of the fog from the 2024 race and show the country and the world who will be standing.

The question mark over Mr Biden remains. While Tuesday was not as bad a result as the Democrats had been expecting, very little of that was down to the commander-in-chief getting out on the battlefield.

Candidates, fearing his record low poll ratings could be infectious, were hardly rushing to invite him to events. And then of course Obama turned up to remind Democrats, and everyone else, what they were missing.

Mr Trump and the candidates he backed had a night of mixed fortunes too. Losing Pennsylvania was a major blow for the Trump camp. Given the appalling treatment of the Democrat candidate, John Fetterman, who had suffered a stroke, it was also a much needed victory for decency.

Just as there was no red wave in general there was no reason for Team Trump to call a victory parade, though of course that is what the former President did.

He is still playing the same “will he won’t he” game that has been on the go since he lost the 2020 election. His latest tease is that there will be a “very big announcement” on November 15. That could mean anything from declaring a run for the White House to changing the colour of the towels at Trump Turnberry.

To some extent, the midterms were a rejection of Trump, a sign that large swathes of America were “over” him. Voters certainly showed what they thought of his baseless claims to be the victim of a stolen election in 2020. If they did believe him and were generally outraged they would have sent every one of his proteges on their way with huge majorities, but they did not.

Mr Trump on the campaign trail has been a singer with one song, and increasing numbers of voters are tired of hearing it.

These midterms were the first elections to have taken place since a right-wing, Trump-supporting mob stormed the Capitol on January 6. The majority of Americans remain shocked at what happened that dreadful day, and for many the midterms will have been a chance to register their wholesale rejection of such behaviour.

Not that the man himself will see the midterm results this way. His appetite for another fight in 2024 seems to have increased rather than diminished, possibly because he now has a rival for Republican affections in Florida’s newly re-elected governor Ron DeSantis.

Delivering his victory speech, Mr DeSantis looked and sounded like he was set for bigger things to come. The language was Trumpian – “We will never ever surrender to the woke mob” – but the delivery was slicker, more restrained.

It is a measure of how rattled Mr Trump is by the competition that he immediately went on the attack.

He claims to know “things” about Mr DeSantis, stuff that “won’t be very flattering” if it gets out. “I know more about him than anybody.” It was the same bully boy of old speaking, the one that has never gone away.

Previously, Republicans have looked the other way when Mr Trump has behaved like this. Will they do so again?

Democrats would of course be delighted at Trump and DeSantis tearing lumps out of each other, but that won’t do much for the standing of politics in general.

There is another message to take away from these midterms, and in particular the scenes of Americans queuing round the block to vote. Despite all the division of recent years, the mayhem and the violence, Americans have not lost their faith in politics and the ballot box.

These elections offer the chance of a reset, a return to something like normality. The opportunity won’t be there forever, though.

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