As the voting ended, America emerged from the 2022 midterm elections a changed nation, holding firm against premonitions of democracy crumbling, voting snafus sparking violence, and the return of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate. Only the third thing actually happened.

As Democrats kept the Senate, the House of Representatives took centre stage. Democrats held an eight-seat majority before voting; Republicans gained a slightly larger margin afterwards, enabling both parties to proclaim victory – Republicans for winning the majority for the first time in four years and Democrats for thwarting a predicted “Red Wave” of 40 to 60 more Republican wins.

Even a narrow majority enables Republicans to make life miserable for President Joe Biden over the next two years, stifling any further policy initiatives or neutering them to the point of irrelevance. That’s the easy part. More challenging will be managing the Trump-inspired “Make America Great Again” right wing of more than 150 members who cast doubts on the legitimacy of Biden’s 2020 victory.

These election deniers can exert enormous control over the party moderates, who are not entirely averse to showing that government can actually govern by working with Democrats. Nor does it bode well for Rep Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader now on the threshold of becoming House Speaker, a perk of majority party status. He needs 218 votes from the 435 members when they vote for Speaker in January. It’s doubtful any Democrat would support him, and hardliners consider him too timid – unlikely to extract revenge for the impeachments and investigations of Trump from those they have in their sights. These include Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s premier infectious disease expert for 40 years, over his response to the Covid crisis, and Biden and his son Hunter – the laptop story and young Biden’s business dealings getting renewed critical attention for the possibility of a smoking gun. McCarthy’s ascension might come only with promises to the MAGAs that could compromise his own policy preferences, like continuing military support for Ukraine. Some want to reduce it. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the MAGA firebrand from Georgia, wants to end it.

Why the Red Wave only lapped at the shoreline reflected a strategic misread of voters, especially of independents. Republican campaigns emphasised inflation, crime and border security, which polls showed to be the top issues. What candidates failed to appreciate was the depth of concern over lost abortion rights and fears of democracy’s demise through suspected election fraud, leading to an insurrection that would have made the 2021 Capitol siege look like a barn dance.

The voting also reflected public exhaustion over election denial. Yes, there are many more sceptical Republicans now in Congress. But some of the highest-profile deniers, many sympathetic to white nationalists, anti-Semites or armed militias, lost crucial bids for the Senate, governor and secretary of state, a position that oversees elections.

In Senate races, ten election deniers won but eight lost, sealing Democrat control of the chamber and casting blame on Trump for endorsing inexperienced or unqualified candidates, like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, a former television doctor, and Arizona governor candidate Kari Lake, a former news presenter and the Trumpiest of candidates anywhere. She was one of thirteen of 22 election-denying governor candidates who lost along with eight of twelve secretary-of-state candidates.

“We can fix policy later,” said Chris Sununu, a moderate Republican who was re-elected governor of New Hampshire. “We can fix crazy now.”

Democrats were confronted with a different landscape. Their caucus was scrambled by the decision of Nancy Pelosi of California, the first female House Speaker, to step down from leadership, along with her two lieutenants, Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. Pelosi is 82, Hoyer 83, Clyburn 82. The average age of their replacements is 51. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York remained Senate majority leader. He’s 72.

Facing a split Congress, Biden could only plead for unity, common sense and stability. But he, too, faces an uncertain future, both politically and personally. Despite stating his “intention” to run again, a final decision early in the new year, he said, would depend upon conversations with his family. Democrats are divided on whether he should run again, even without an obvious successor. Already the oldest president ever elected, he turned 80 last month.

From a policy perspective, he can expect rough terrain over the next two years, even with a friendly Senate. With Republicans opposed to more spending on anything but the military, Biden’s biggest impact may be limited to filling more open federal judge seats.

At least running again would set up a possible rematch with Trump, for whom much is also different this time. He’s the focus of so many investigations that Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to oversee two of the biggest: his role in events leading to the Capitol attack and his handling of sensitive government documents found in his Florida residence. Garland’s move was designed to put political distance between the probes and the White House (as if) and Trump was having none it. He viewed Garland’s decision as the latest attack by Democrat meanies, saying: “They want to do bad things to the greatest movement in the history of our country, but in particular, bad things to me.”

But the audience is growing weary of Trump playing the victim, with nothing new to say. His announcement speech last month was delivered so calmly, with none of the fire of years past, that commentators judged it “low energy” and uninspiring. Maybe no surprise there. He’s 76. In the beginning, voters loved him as a new political force, an underdog, audacious, crass and uncontrollable. He cleared the primary field easily and shocked the world, beating Hillary Clinton. Four years later, the primary field again melted away, and he won the most votes of any incumbent president. It’s just that Biden won seven million more.

Trump has also lost the support of former aides and backers, including his favourite daughter and close adviser, Ivanka. A slew of billionaire donors have said they’ll look elsewhere to spend campaign money, encouraging a new batch of Republicans to eye up the White House, undaunted by Trump running again. One has emerged a front runner: Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, an Ivy League-educated, smooth-talking, hard-right conservative who won re-election this year in a landslide. Even parts of the Murdoch media have cooled towards Trump and are climbing on board with DeSantis, with one front-page headline in the Murdoch-owned New York Post declaring him “DeFuture”, and another displaying an egg-shaped figure called “Trumpty Dumpty”.

What lies ahead over the next two years is anybody’s guess. The country is still deeply divided, but the midterm voting went smoothly, no one was hurt and democracy didn’t break. America is still standing.

For now, anyway.

Bankman-Fried joins the club

Stunning as the losses were from his stewardship of the cryptocurrency exchange firm FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried became just another sorry act on a stage with US-based, high-finance cheaters.

Sure, the $8 billion lost through malfeasance and mismanagement, and the ripple effect throughout the crypto industry, sounded spectacular. But he’s just an also-ran beside the names of more celebrated scammers. And he’s not even close to having his name achieve generic status, like the legendary Charles Ponzi, an Italian swindler whose fraudulent schemes in the 1920s gave identity to a certain category of crime.

In truth, America has played victim to hundreds of con men and women over the years, including the scammer for whom “con man” became a term of art. William Thompson fleeced the well-to-do in 1840s New York, borrowing their watches, then disappearing. After drawing them into his confidence, he became known as a “con” man.

Most others have not yet reached rhetorical prominence, but their schemes were otherwise notorious and newsworthy, and the best of them made SBF, as he’s known, look like an amateur. Here are a few notables from a pantheon of perpetrators: Bernie Madoff would have made Charles Ponzi proud. As head of a large wealth management firm he paid high dividends using new investment money, a house of cards that crumbled after his sons reported him to the authorities. That ended a Ponzi scheme worth $68 billion and brought Madoff 150 years in prison, where he died last year. One of the sons later hanged himself; the other died of lymphoma.

And who could forget the televangelist Jim Bakker, who used his audience of six million to finance his lavish lifestyle, which fell apart after a sex scandal with a church secretary who later accused him of rape. Charged with 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy, he was sentenced in 1988 to 45 years in prison and served six after his sentence was reduced. During the Covid crisis, he was sued in Missouri for selling fake supplements to treat the virus.

Fraudulent bookkeeping practices and other criminal practices led the stock of Enron, a Houston-based energy company, to fall from $90 a share in 2000 to $1 a year later, bringing charges against its leadership team of Jeffrey Skilling, Kenneth Lay and Andrew Fastow for money laundering, bank fraud, securities fraud, false statements, insider trading and other crimes. All three were convicted and sentenced to prison, although Lay died before sentencing. Shareholders lost $78 billion.

As a high school sophomore in the 1960s, Barry Minkow created ZZZZ Best, which started as a carpet-cleaning and restoration company. When it grew to include a subsidiary to oversee the company’s quality of service to obtain bank loans, it became a front to attract investment, in essence a Ponzi scheme that cost investors $100 million and led to seven and a half years in prison on a multitude of charges. In the years after his release, he was caught up in a series of more scandals, charges and prison sentences. Early this year a television documentary series explored his various escapades. It was called King of the Con.

Then there was Geraldine “Liz” Carmichael, a transgender woman who marketed the Dale, a three-wheel car designed in the 1970s to get 70 miles per gallon. She raised $30 million in investments and $3 million in advanced sales. It was all a scam: there was no factory, no production, no Dale. She was later convicted on charges of conspiracy, grand theft, and fraud, but disappeared before sentencing. Eight years later, she was found, tried and sent to prison for eighteen months. She died in 2004.

Michael Janofsky is a writer and editor in Los Angeles. He previously spent 24 years as a correspondent for The New York Times