The lazy take on the US elections says nothing much has changed. Barack Obama is in the White House, Republicans control the House and Democrats the Senate. Washington is heading back to gridlock as usual. Oh, and the economy is running at stall speed. As for the multitudes of Obama supporters around the globe, they will probably be disappointed again.

The trouble with analyses such as this is the presumption that we live in a steady state world. Mr Obama’s re-election has changed the dynamics of American politics. Given the economic backdrop and the force of his opponents’ rage, it was a momentous victory. America’s first black president can leave behind the fear, ever present during the past four years, that his place in history would carry the footnote that he had served only one term.

Republicans have serious thinking to do. Not that long ago Karl Rove, the pre-eminent Republican strategist, was boasting that he had built a permanent majority. The party then harnessed everything to the effort to defeat Mr Obama. Having bet the bank, it lost the lot in circumstances as propitious as any opposition party could have hoped for. The delicate Mr Rove has been left spluttering that the Democrat campaign was unfairly negative.