Last Tuesday, the 2026 midterm elections took place. Occurring in the middle of the sitting president’s tenure, midterm elections can be a useful metric to determine the president’s popularity. Midterm elections are also significant because of their power to render the sitting president a “lame duck” by switching the majority in either the United States House or Senate, or both. The newly elected House of Representatives can pass the articles of impeachment against a federal official through a simple majority vote. The Senate must then hold a trial overseen by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, with a two-thirds supermajority vote required to convict and remove the official from office.
No sitting United States President has ever been convicted and removed by the Senate. However, the president is not the only official that Congress can impeach; Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution states that “[T]he President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Congress has impeached 22 federal officials throughout history, including 15 federal judges, three sitting presidents, one senator, and two cabinet members; President Trump has been impeached twice by the House. Eight of the impeached officials have been convicted and removed by the Senate, all of them federal judges.
The 2026 midterms switched the majority party in both levels of the legislature. The Democratic Party, having won 254 seats in the House and 54 seats in the Senate, can now pass articles of impeachment without bipartisan support. Convicting and removing an official will still require at least thirteen additional voters from across the aisle.
Impeachment aside, this election is also significant because it puts Democrats in charge of House committees, granting them subpoena powers to investigate — among other things — President Trump, his family, and their business ventures. Furthermore, the House can pass legislation by a simple majority, which the Democrats now hold.
In the spirit of diverse political interpretations, I visited the Colby Museum of Art’s exhibit, “The Sun Never Sets.” Taking its title from a sixteenth-century Spanish refrain about the vastness of the Spanish empire, the exhibition showcases images gathered in Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico during the last years of Spanish colonization. These “images are not transparent windows into colonial life… they reflect particular perspectives and purposes rather than purely artistic points of view.” These images, though Spanish in origin, offer insight into America’s current political system, and the importance of considering differing ideologies.
The same description holds for our conception of political parties; while it is tempting to believe that the party an individual subscribes to should define their values, like equity or human rights, for example, that association is perspectival and the result of contingent factors. Such factors include the dichotomous structure between two prominent parties, which portrays one always in opposition to the other. We must not blindly accept that our party is a party of justice or equity; we must scrutinize its promises from before the election until after the elected officials take office. We must make sure their values stay consistent even in the absence of majority opposition.
~ Benjamin Ha `27
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