卡尔·马克思将于11月3日“登场”。中期选举将检验他那句名言：历史总是重演两次——第一次是悲剧，第二次是闹剧。悲剧是2021年1月6日对国会大厦的袭击，那是试图阻止国会认证乔·拜登在两个月前的总统选举中获胜、唐纳德·特朗普落败的结果。它震动了联邦首都，也震动了共和国。
Karl Marx will be making an appearance on November 3. The midterm elections will test his famous line that history always repeats itself twice – first as tragedy, then as farce. The tragedy was the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's victory and Donald Trump's defeat in the presidential election held two months earlier. It shook the federal capital, and the republic along with it.
闹剧将是：共和党总统因中期选举形势不利而发起新的国内攻势，却撞上了一股民主党浪潮。这股浪潮将冲刷掉那些为阻止抗议性投票而设置的障碍，这种抗议性投票源于总统历史性的低支持率，而低支持率又是一连串反复无常决策的产物。它还将使任何形式的选举后法律游击战成为不可能。
The farce would be for the Republican president's new domestic offensive against midterms that are going badly for him to run into a Democratic wave. That would sweep away the obstacles set up to prevent a protest vote driven by the president's historic unpopularity, the product of a string of erratic decisions. It would also make any form of post-election legal guerrilla warfare impossible.
在特朗普治下，他主要靠行政命令施政，国会两院均由共和党控制，却因盲目顺从而萎缩。众议院和参议院若转由民主党掌控，将恢复国会对一个深陷腐败指控的政府的监督权力。这也将大幅限制一位处于最后任期、且被禁止再次竞选的总统的任命权力。
Under Trump, who governs mainly by executive order, both Republican-controlled chambers of Congress have withered out of servility. A shift of the House of Representatives and the Senate to the Democrats would revive Congress's oversight powers over an administration beset by accusations of corruption. It would also drastically limit the appointment powers of a president who is in his final term and barred from running again.
10月22日星期四，阿拉斯加州发生的一起先发制人的法律打击行动，由司法部发起——该部门已被总统实际上变成了他的私人律师事务所——这预示了他左右中期选举结果的决心。该行动旨在阻止州政府认证一场参议院竞选的结果，这场竞选可能对参议院的控制权起决定性作用。借口是：一位独立候选人与现任共和党参议员同姓。
On Thursday, October 22, a preemptive legal strike in Alaska, launched by a Justice Department the president has effectively turned into his private law firm, offered a preview of his determination to sway the outcome of the midterms. The move sought to prevent state authorities from certifying the result of a Senate race that could prove decisive for control of the upper chamber. The pretext: an independent candidate shares the surname of the incumbent Republican senator.
让-饶勒斯基金会北美观察站主任吕迪维娜·吉利在9月出版的新书《美国：被窃取的选票》中写道，这种联邦干预属于各州专属权力范围内的事务，相当于“一次历史性的倒退”。
This federal interference in what falls under the exclusive authority of the states amounts to "a historic reversal," writes Ludivine Gilli, director of the North America observatory at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès, in a timely book published in September, Etats-Unis: le vote confisqué ("United States: The Confiscated Vote," untranslated).