Tuesday’s winners offered a new politics at a time when ‘there is something broken in America’

As the US election returns came in throughout the night on Tuesday, there was ebullience at the size of the margin. It was comparable to the significant thumpings over the years. Yet bigger.

In 2006, Americans were exhausted by the war in Iraq (by simply changing the last letter to “n”, we have a similar situation today). But even that big win paled in comparison.

The US has seen plenty of terrible speeches over the centuries. But Trump’s midterm rallies are a new low

In a sense, history has already been made. We do not know the result of the election yet, but over the last two months, Americans have endured the worst speeches ever given by a president of the United States.

It is far from a simple matter to adjudicate – there have been so many bad speeches over the years, going back the founders, some of whom dreaded speaking in public. George Washington’s inaugural address did not begin promisingly, with a halting first sentence: “Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present month.”