Trump's tendency to lash out after losing has some observers nervous

For the past two years, much of the world — as represented by both its leaders and its media — has been held in awe of the increasingly dangerous whims of a visibly declining and erratic old man.

When that old man is the president of the United States — from the moment he was elected for a second time — there seemed to be little choice but to take his actions seriously and to believe they were part of a thought-through strategy.

That was both because of the position he held and because the shock that he had regained it left many in the Western world questioning their understanding of what was driving the mood of voters.

World leaders approached their meetings with Donald Trump too often with trepidation.

News organisations seemed to feel they had little choice but to report seriously his day-to-day changes in tariff rates or plans to wipe whole countries off the face of the planet, given the office he held.

Equally, political analysts felt the need to defer to the power of his particular brand of nasty and divisive politics on the basis that it seemed to be a winning formula that was succeeding around the world.

As is always the case with an election producing a massive swing in political fortunes, it took but an instant for different and often self-serving rationales to be ascribed to the win.

Experience suggests it is best to usually see such a swing as a rejection of what has gone before it rather than an articulate and thought-through endorsement of an alternative.

No wonder so many major newspapers around the world used the words "stunning rebuke to Trump" in their headlines about the midterm vote for the US Congress.

That makes assessing its global impact best thought about in terms of who will be emboldened by it, and which rats will be leaving the sinking ship.

That is, how will it change the obeisance that has been paid to Trump and an administration that has become increasingly brazen in its quest for self-enrichment, and dangerous in its reckless disregard for its impact on the rest of the world.

Many have observed that the thing that most motivates the US president is being seen as a winner.

If there is anything that makes world leaders and analysts nervous about the immediate fallout of the election, it is concern that Trump may lash out when confronted with the fact he has indeed been so stunningly rebuked and has lost.

That is that he may make a decision to restart a war with Iran as a move to show he can still "win", even if most strategic assessments are that a renewed air campaign cannot either topple the Iranian regime or ensure that Iran never develops a nuclear weapon.

Equally, much of what happens globally next will depend on where his equally familiar tendency to blame others will fall.

Analysis in both the United States and Israel has pointed the finger of blame at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for persuading Trump into the war, and also for profoundly damaging the relationship between Israel, the American public and the wider world as a result.

Twenty-four hours before the vote in the US, there was a near-universal expectation in the Middle East that Trump and Netanyahu would once again launch an attack on Iran, even if their respective aims are now quite different.

Trump wants a way out — a win even — and one built around claiming a victory on stopping Iran's nuclear program, while Netanyahu continues to pursue regime change.

Watching in the Middle East, the similarities in the actions of Trump and his once-close Israeli partner are striking.

The results of the Israeli election were less definitive than those in the US, but they have triggered a similar push for a change of direction, and a similar defiance among Netanyahu's opponents, the media and public opinion.

His attempts to vilify and delegitimise Arab and Palestinian Israelis for voting in record numbers, and in suggesting the election was therefore stolen from Jewish Israelis, had echoes of Trump in 2020.

But Netanyahu's campaign has been met with a rejection by institutional Israel.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog — who will decide who gets to form a government — said "I have great respect for Arab society in Israel".

"I recognise its contribution to the state in every sphere of life and its desire to integrate," he said in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

"I condemn the vulgarity and racist expressions we have heard recently. There is no place for such behaviour toward any community in Israel."

The commission that oversees the Israeli election process has also resisted attempts to challenge the validity of the vote, even as Netanyahu has used the security establishment to try to arrest and intimidate opponents.

The concern has been that both Trump and Netanyahu would launch an attack as a last show of claimed omnipotence.

While a rational mind might see the polls as a repudiation of the war in Iran, Trump could well see it as a sign that he is still in control — and Netanyahu, as an attempt to stay in control.

Opinion is now more divided about whether that attack will come.

For both men, the mirror opposite response to the "stunning rebuke" is the number of people and institutions around them who may be emboldened to resist them or who may be prompted to walk away.

In the United States, the change in the numbers in the Congress primarily threaten inquiry and legal action against Trump's court.

There is speculation that the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, may face indictment for war crimes; that Trump's "special negotiators" Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff may face investigations into the business deals they have been doing while travelling the world allegedly brokering peace negotiations.

Without the impunity that comes from the seemingly untrammelled power of the White House, those who may have been prepared to make questionable deals, or trample on legal norms, will think twice about continuing to do so.

That applies to the wider universe of people and organisations that have aligned themselves with the Trump Universe, as much as its inner sanctum.

The tech billionaires, and even figures like Vladimir Putin, will no longer be able to act with confidence that the White House can deliver for them.

What is different about the world as it digests the implications of the midterms is that, in the space of just a couple of years, Trump has done such irreparable damage to the standing of the United States.

Other countries have got used to the idea of making alternative plans.

Relationships in Europe and the Middle East have been overhauled.

Presumed reliance on the US for both security and military hardware has been found to be a dangerous delusion (except perhaps in Australia).

A saner United States cannot just walk back into a position of global pre-eminence.

The war in Iran has caused untold physical and economic damage throughout the Middle East.

But as with so many cases of overreach, it has mostly damaged its perpetrators: Donald Trump and, through him, the United States's credibility; and Benjamin Netanyahu and, through him, Israel's ability to confidently rely on US backing.

In a broader sense, the confidence given to populist leaders around the world by Trump's style of politics — and the apparent inability of those who would fight it to do so — may also change as a result of the midterms.

The one thing that won't change is the underlying dissatisfaction with the capacity of government to deliver for their communities, which still sees Europe in flames and voters looking for some leadership.