The past midterm elections were the first elections I got to witness from afar, not mired in the political machine that warps reality and makes normally intelligent and sane people go bonkers. America is so ugly when it comes to campaigning.

For me, the reality of a midterm election had been looming somewhere in the dark future since before I even left the U.S., and then Nov. 2 came and went without so much a ripple, even though I was glued to my desk Wednesday morning at work impatiently watching the results come in. Did they happen? From overseas, the hyperbolic political ads, the Tea Party’s antics and the dramatic media analyses mixed together into a year-long theater comedy. I was strangely aware that it was really happening, and yet not believing that it was really happening. Maybe I was just protecting myself from the already-known outcome.

Then again, in China, few people paid attention or even knew it was happening. “Why are you sad?” one friend asked me last night. “The elections,” I replied. “You mean promotion?” I’m not sure how “promotion” would have made more sense, but I had to spend the next five minutes explaining how U.S. domestic politics worked to her. A bit strange, considering so many successful campaigns included a bunch of China-bashing. (Chinese experts, for their part, did not fail to notice this. Chinese newspapers have began running articles on what it means for China; their conclusion is — nothing.)

Not usually one to agree with Andrew Sullivan, though I value his short snippets of insight tremendously, I can’t find anything to disagree with what he wrote here:

What we seem to be facing in the next two years is a president actually trying to govern a country in a profound crisis, and an opposition focused entirely on harassing or preventing him … while running for 2012. My view is a relatively simple one: the GOP ran on cutting spending. I think their first move should be to propose a path to balancing the budget in the foreseeable future. I want to see their actual proposals on entitlements and defense. They refused to reveal them before the election. Are we supposed to wait till 2013?

If I were an optimist, I would think the GOP victory means that Republicans will stop playing politics and do something, for instance, legislate, as legislators do. Especially because as the majority party in the House, they are now leaders and bear responsibility for leading the country.

But in this case, I’m not an optimist. Dirty Republican politics as usual, in an effort to take 2012.