Ducks have a reason to celebrate in Washington on Wednesday, after residents in the US capital voted to ban the force feeding of birds and the sale of foie gras.
There is, however, one rather important duck – albeit a lame one – sitting in the White House with a lot less reason to cheer.
After two years of almost unbridled power, President Donald Trump has had his wings severely clipped in the US midterm elections. The results have radically reshaped the political landscape, with Democrats securing full control of Congress and making gains beyond even their wildest expectations.
It’s hard to overstate the scope of the Republican losses: Kansas voted for a Democratic senator for the first time since 1932. Texas elected its first Democratic senator since 1988. Darline Graham was unable to hold on to her late brother Lindsey Graham’s Senate seat in South Carolina. Iowa – long considered a Republican stronghold – voted for a Democratic senator too.
It all means Mr Trump’s legislative agenda will most probably come to a screeching halt when the next session of Congress begins in January.
A priority will be for the Democrats to assert their authority over what is happening in the Middle East.
After two years writing strongly worded letters and having almost zero influence in Washington, the Democrats are once again a political force in the US, and we can expect them to move quickly to shine a spotlight on Mr Trump’s war with Iran.
The conflict has defined the US midterms, with disruption to the Strait of Hormuz sparking rounds of price increases that infuriated American voters, especially after Mr Trump campaigned in the 2024 presidential election on not starting new wars.
More than eight months after the conflict started, it is once again at a particularly dangerous juncture, with Washington and Tehran far apart in efforts to negotiate an end to hostilities, and as the US carries out renewed strikes on Iranian targets near the Strait of Hormuz.
Democrats have long argued that Mr Trump had no right to launch the war without congressional authorisation, and they have repeatedly tried to use the War Powers Resolution to force him to seek approval or to end US military involvement.
With control of Congress, Democrats will soon be able to summon Trump administration officials into the US Capitol to testify under oath and to launch investigations into how the war was planned and conducted. They will grill officials such as Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth over everything from how much the war has really cost to what intelligence underpinned the decision to attack Iran.
Democrats will also have awkward questions for the administration over how many missile interceptors it has left, how the US can protect its Gulf allies and Israel’s role in persuading Mr Trump to launch a new war.
Still, the resurgent Democrats must decide how much time they want to spend litigating the Trump administration’s foreign policy decisions versus how much they want to draft legislation to address America’s cost of living crisis.
It would be easy for the Democrats to think they have done something right by winning the midterms, but their party remains viewed unfavourably by about half the country, and they would be foolish to overplay their hand two years out from the next presidential election.
Perhaps surprisingly, Mr Trump didn’t challenge the results of Tuesday’s elections – the results were overwhelmingly against his party. He even said he would be willing to work with Democrats, although he has said that before and has not done so.
It will be interesting to see how his final two years in office play out. Even as a hobbled president, he still retains the power of the veto and can get a lot done by executive order, including on matters of national security.
The lame duck may have lost a lot of his political bite, but he is not yet ready to fly south for the winter.
