Wars on poverty, on drugs, on terrorism: for decades the federal government has been declaring war—metaphorical, that is. The casualties? Compromise, reason, and the separation of powers.

As a response to the Great Depression and an expression of executive power, President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal is widely understood as a turning point in American history. In How Public Policy Became War, David Davenport and Gordon Lloyd go even further, calling the New Deal “America’s French Revolution,” refashioning American government and public policy in ways that have grown to epic proportions today.

The labels used to describe it sadly diminish the 2018 election: “Mid-term” or “off-year” or “non-presidential.” Even though nothing less than the membership and direction of the United States Congress is at stake, such elections receive limited respect and even lower voter turnout (around 40% compared with approximately 60% when there is a presidential race). What’s more, even though the president is not on the ballot, these elections are nevertheless very much a referendum on the president’s performance and popularity.

With many uncertainties about Trumpism, one thing we know for sure: Donald Trump’s key constituency is “the forgotten men and women.” His first tweet as president-elect promised that “the forgotten man and woman will never be forgotten again.” Indeed, the forgotten men and women were recurring characters in a flurry of campaign speeches he gave just before the election, the people who “built our country,” he said, the “middle class.”