Where can one find a symbol of the ‘Blue Tsunami’ – the wave of Democratic votes that swept through so many strongholds of Donald Trump’s MAGA empire in the US midterm elections? In Michigan, which elected Abdul El-Sayed, the first Muslim to serve in the Senate, despite opposition from a significant portion of his own party? In Texas, which, after decades of Republican dominance, has elected the seminarian James Talarico as senator and Gina Hinojosa – the first governor of Latin American descent – as governor? In Georgia, home to Senator Jon Ossoff – whom many compare to Obama – and Governor Keisha Lance Bottoms, the first Black woman to hold this office? Among the many unexpected results of the night between 4 and 5 November, one is spoilt for choice.
Perhaps one of the most unlikely places from which this wave began is this building, which from the outside might look like an auditorium, a sports hall or a hospital, but is in fact a church – or, as they say in the United States, a megachurch: the headquarters of the United Methodist Church of Resurrection, the largest Methodist congregation in the country. We are in Leawood, on the outskirts of Kansas City, the urban conurbation that stretches on both sides of the border between Kansas and Missouri. In Kansas, the Democratic Party had not elected a senator since 1932 – 94 years ago – but this time they succeeded with Adam Hamilton, a Methodist pastor and, indeed, the founder of the megachurch.
And so, amongst the many surprises of the other night, we discovered – or rediscovered – that American Protestantism does not only have the extremist, belligerent, delusional face of preachers who see Trump as the new Messiah, or of ‘Minister of War’ Pete Hegseth, eager to unleash new Crusades. After all, *La Repubblica* correspondent Anna Lombardi pointed out in her report from Kansas City that Martin Luther King was also a Baptist pastor. The preacher Hamilton and the seminarian Talarico have dusted off a slogan that has enjoyed a certain degree of success over the past two thousand years, ‘love thy neighbour’, and have conducted an election campaign on issues such as the cost of living, high petrol prices and tariffs, without getting dragged into the realm of culture wars and without fearing to join a Democratic Party that their opponents portray as a ‘woke’ circus full of communists, Islamic terrorists, gender ideologues and so on. It is still too early to declare the end of Trump and his followers, but it is heartening to discover that even the decent people of Kansas or Texas do not wish to succumb entirely to apocalyptic fascism.
From the ‘Finally, it’s Friday’ newsletter dated 6 November 2026. Click here to subscribe – it’s free