If we follow the ropey Russophobic logic then the mid-term anti-climax means Moscow is losing its supposed malign power of influence.
The mid-term elections in the United States this week turned out to be an anti-climax in more ways than one. Very little happened. The dogs didn't bark, as Sherlock Holmes might have said.
The Biden presidency will now shuffle forward for the next two years as a lame-duck administration, albeit against increased Republican resistance to his legislative program. But in the grand scheme of things for most ordinary Americans little will change. The War Party will continue to waste money and lives on fueling militarism for U.S. imperialist gain when and where it is deemed necessary, perhaps against Russia, or maybe China, Iran, North Korea, or some other nation.
So, what didn't happen? Well, there was no violence at polling stations among bitterly opposed voters, as some had feared. The brutal hammer assault on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week had peaked worries that there would be an outbreak of political violence amid torrid partisan tensions and feverish conspiracy theories.
Also, this time around there was not much uproar about "stolen elections" from the Republican followers of former President Donald Trump. That hoary old claim seems to be wearing thin after two years on from the 2020 presidential debacle and unfounded claims of "election fraud".
Notably, there was no expected landslide victory or "Red Wave" for the Republicans. The latter is the more rightwing of the two main parties. The emblematic red color defies the usual association around the world between red and leftwing politics. Typically, the U.S. defies normal political definitions.
Trump's endorsed candidates showed overall poor performances at the polls.
In the end, it was an election "that nobody won", as U.S. media reports put it rather curiously.
President Joe Biden and his, let's say center-right, Democrat Party - the Blue Party - were predicted to receive a drubbing from voters angered by rising living costs.
Surprisingly, however, there was only a somewhat restrained backlash against the Democrats. The party appears to have clung onto narrow control of the Senate, the upper chamber.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has shifted to Republican control, but only marginally.
President Biden and Democrats were pleased by the damp squib simply because it was not an electoral slaughter, as many pundits were predicting.
The realistic and far more damning conclusion about the ambivalent, underwhelming outcome is that American voters are not impressed by either Democrats or Republicans.
Biden talked upbeat about "a good day for democracy" as votes were being tabulated.
The truth is it was more a shameful spectacle of failure. As has become the norm in U.S. mid-term elections, the voter turnout was less than 50 per cent. That is, more than half of American citizens can't be bothered to cast a ballot. Because ultimately they know there is nothing much to choose between two parties that are controlled by big business, the oligarchy, Wall Street and the military-industrial complex.
The Democrats were rebuked by voters to a degree, but the Republicans failed to make significant gains. That means the political system is more than ever deadlocked between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Democrat and Republican. Blue and Red. What's the difference? They are both sides of the same War Party. And that party is over, as far as most American voters are concerned.
While American citizens - like those across Europe - are being lashed with grim economic hardships, the Washington cabal and their European vassals are pouring tens of billions of dollars into fueling a war in Ukraine that is threatening to spiral out of control. Belated signals about peace overtures and Washington urging the Kiev regime to the negotiating table with Russia don't stand up to scrutiny.
Make no mistake: the Republicans are as gung-ho and as militaristic as the Democrats. There may have been some grumbling in the run-up to the elections this week about "blank check" military aid to Ukraine, but when the chips are down the Republicans will do the bidding of the military-industrial complex as eagerly as the Democrats.
That would explain why American voters evidently held their noses en masse on November 8 and baulked at choosing between both political factions of the plutocracy - including the charlatan "populist" Donald J Trump.
A further striking observation is evidently the complete lack of "Russian influence" on the U.S. elections. That canard has been around since the 2016 presidential contest when Trump took the White House denying Democrat rival Hillary Clinton an expected win. Trump's administration was dogged by relentless claims made by the Democrats and their supportive media that Russia allegedly interfered in the 2016 contest to get Trump elected.
How absurd! Only in America could such depoliticized, paranoid thinking become mainstream.
Again the truth is maverick Trump tapped voters in 2016 who were sorely wearied by the Democrat and Republican duopoly. They gave an outsider a chance back then out of desperation - only to subsequently find out that Trump wasn't much different. He is as much a creature of the Washington "swamp" as any other of the politicians that are bought and paid for by big business and the corporate interests of U.S. imperialism.
That's why this time around Trump and his Republican ilk have lost their luster. They have been rumbled by U.S. voters as being part of the same two-party shackle and racket.
The stark and sobering conclusion is that the vast majority of working Americans are not represented by their governing elites. That's flagrantly not democracy and that naked spectacle is in itself subversive. The United States is nothing more than an oligarchy with a corporate-funded showtime every two years between presidential and mid-term elections.
The election non-result totally debunks the tired and threadbare speculations that Russia was plotting to interfere (again) in order to catapult Trump and Republicans to dominance in the two Congressional chambers. The convoluted notion was that Russia would prefer Republicans who had voiced some circumspection about the war in Ukraine and the ongoing massive U.S. military aid to the Kiev regime. As already noted any griping from Republicans over Ukraine has to be taken with a pinch of salt. The U.S. ruling class and its imperial interests own and override both parties.
As one critical American commentator wryly remarked: the military-industrial complex is always the winner of U.S. elections. Perhaps that might change in the future if a political party emerges that actually represents the interests of working Americans.
Alas, just for a laugh mind you, if we follow the ropey Russophobic logic then the mid-term anti-climax means Moscow is losing its supposed malign power of influence. Fittingly, too, in the same week that the Western media were crowing about Russia's "defeat" in the city of Kherson (rather than strategic withdrawal).
Or maybe a more rational explanation is simply this: U.S. democracy is a dysfunctional mess of its own making.