The disruptive political rise of Donald Trump, from his shock democratic storming of the White House in 2016 to his followers’ outrageous assault on Capitol Hill in 2021, may now have peaked and even gone into decline, as the Republicans’ unexpectedly modest gains in the American midterm elections suggest.

The political huckster’s attempts to turn them into a referendum on his supposedly stolen presidency have failed, along with most of his hand-picked candidates, running the same outlandish claims and refusing to concede to democratic ground rules.