Donald Trump

In President Donald Trump’s first year in office, U.S. policy relating to supporting democracy abroad became starkly divided. At the level of “high policy”—direct engagement and messaging by President Trump and his principal foreign policy advisers—the United States sharply downgraded its global pro-democratic posture. Trump’s praise of dictators, criticism of democratic allies, and anti-democratic actions at home recast the United States as at best an ambivalent actor on the global democratic stage. Yet at the same time, pro-democratic “low policy”—quiet but serious engagement by U.S.

Many European politicians see the ascending trajectory of quarrels between the USA and Russia as worrisome and unhelpful for upholding security and stability in Europe. At the same time, they keep asking for a firm US leadership in countering and containing Russia’s military pressure and unconventional aggressiveness.

Tutti i deputati (435) e un terzo dei senatori (33, più due elezioni speciali) del Congresso federale, 36 governatori degli stati, più di 6500 cariche a livello statale e altre migliaia a livello locale. Le elezioni di metà mandato del 2018 sono, come sempre, un esercizio di democrazia enorme e labirintico. La posta in palio maggiore, naturalmente, è a Washington. Attualmente il Partito Repubblicano controlla sia la Camera dei Rappresentanti (235 contro 193, più 7 seggi vacanti) sia il Senato (con una risicatissima maggioranza di 51 seggi a 49, compresi 2 indipendenti).

On November 6^th (and for several weeks before, in the many states that permit early voting), Americans will go to the polls to choose all 435 members of the House of Representatives, 35 of the 100 Senators, and a variety of state and local officials. Currently, Republicans hold a dominant position in U.S. politics, controlling the presidency, both houses of Congress, and a strong majority of governorships and state legislative chambers.

Donald Trump’s first year as President of the United States has been, to put it mildly, tempestuous. After a bitterly divisive campaign and a razor-thin victory (he won in the Electoral College with only 46.4% of the national popular vote), Trump took office with the lowest initial approval rating of any president in the modern polling era, and has remained historically unpopular for a first-year president.