The victory of the Democratic party in the US midterm elections, even if not the extent of it, was not unexpected. So many of the polls leading up to the elections which were broadly in unison could not have been off-track.

The blue wave in Texas, which Donald Trump carried by 14 points just two years ago but where the Democrats won all the state-wide races by convincing majorities, the possibility of the first victory in the Mississippi Senate race in 44 years and the first Senate victory in Kansas in 94 years were symptomatic of the resolve of the American voters that things had to change.

The election results in which the Democrats secured over 16 million more votes than the Republicans were clearly a referendum on Trump’s presidency over the last two years. He urged his supporters to pretend that “I am on the ballot”. Many of them obviously did.

In typical Trump delusional fashion, he insists that if he were on the ballot the results would have been different and blames the Republican candidates, many of whom he, himself, inserted, for the massive loss despite all the work he had done to boost their chances.

For a political leader, Trump’s instincts are weird. For him to declare in relation to the spiralling gas prices that “I don’t give a damn” and to endorse the nasty political ad against the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Ohio reflect the impulses of an emperor fully in control of his subjects. Trump, clearly, doesn’t get it.

The United States is in for a period of turbulence. It must now contend with a deeply divided Government where the president’s party does not control either the House or the Senate. It has deep implications for the functioning of Government. The Congress has the power to pass laws but the president has the power to veto them. The president submits the annual budget to Congress but Congress has the power to reject it. Nominations to critical posts, including Cabinet secretaries, federal judges, and ambassadors are made by the president but require the approval of Congress.

Such a scenario, made more complex by fundamental policy differences, requires reasonableness, consummate negotiating skills and the willingness to compromise on the part of both Congress and the president to avoid deadlocks and the virtual paralysis of the Government. These are not assets for which Trump is renowned. His art of the deal is for the other side, under coercion, to cave in and do things his way. It is unlikely to work — not in the hostile political environment that he has done so much to perpetuate and intensify.

Importantly, Congress has subpoena powers that enable it to conduct investigations into virtually any aspect of Government activity and under Trump’s Administration there is no shortage of matters that are ripe for investigation. Conducting these investigations that are bound to be contentious and even personal while at the same time trying to find consensus on critical Government issues is tricky business.

Trump has by no means been left powerless. The US constitutional arrangement allows him to exercise considerable executive authority without requiring congressional approval. But there are many ways to skin the cat. The control of expenditure that rests in the hands of Congress can be used to stymie many initiatives that the president has the power to pursue on his own.

The US has been there many times before. On most occasions reasonableness prevailed, but much of that derived from astute leadership. President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Tip O’Neill were exemplars in navigating those waters.

The seismic shift in American politics which has rendered Trump the lamest of lame ducks will reverberate far beyond its shores. His erratic foreign policy pursuits that have left much of the world unsettled and unpredictable will come under intense scrutiny unlike the spineless acquiescence he enjoyed from a Republican-controlled Congress. World leaders will increasingly look beyond the rest of Trump’s term to gauge where the US will stand on important issues and calibrate their responses accordingly.

One possible reaction by Trump to the new political reality is for him to temper his impulses and his autocratic tendencies in the hope of salvaging his legacy. I doubt if that will be the case. Since he cannot seek re-election, he may very well not give a damn and continue to do as he likes where possible, regardless of its consequences, including the damage it does to his own party’s chances in the 2028 elections.

Of relevance to us in Jamaica is whether a weakened Trump will enable and incline us to put up more resistance to his dictates and demands where they impair our interests and undermine the values and principles that had long defined us as a nation and for which we had gained international respect.

In the treacherous waters that we find ourselves, we need something to tie our rope to, and that clearly cannot be Trump.

Bruce Golding served as Jamaica’s eighth prime minister from September 2007 to October 2011.