The American mid-term elections have handed the Democrats a massive slap in the face, and have reinvigorated the conservative movement. The grassroots Tea Party movement has triumphed in spectacular fashion, and President Obama and his party has been handed a humiliating drubbing.

With 37 of the 50 governorships up for grabs, all the House of Representative seats (435 in total), 37 of the 100 Senate seats, and a number of initiatives to be decided, the results so far have been quite pleasing for the conservatives. While it is still too early to call the entire outcome, it appears that certainly the House is now back in Republican control.

It looks like some 60 seats will be picked up by the Republicans there, which is a very handy tsunami indeed. This means, among other things, that arch secular leftist Nancy Pelosi will be booted out of the speaker’s seat. That alone should bring great joy to the hearts of so many conservatives.

Thus the free ride which Obama has enjoyed for his first two years in office has now come to a decisive end. He will now have to learn about real bipartisan politics, and much of his agenda will now be curtailed or greatly challenged. It will be a much different political landscape from now on.

And this election also means that grassroots concservatism, as in the Tea Party movement, is the wave of the future, while establishment Republicans, or RINOs (Republican in name only) are a vanishing breed. Conservatives are tired about the way so many Republican leaders have lost touch with mainstream Republican voters.

Thus it is not just the Democratic Party which is facing major change here, but the Republican Party as well. The groundswell of conservative sentiment is sweeping the country, and those out of touch with this can expect to see voter backlash big time.

Writing just before the elections, Thomas Sowell explained what was at stake: “Most elections are about particular policies, particular scandals or particular personalities. But these issues don’t mean as much this year – not because they are not important, but because this election is a crossroads election, one that can decide what path this country will take for many years to come. Runaway ‘stimulus’ spending, high unemployment and ObamaCare are all legitimate and important issues. It is just that freedom and survival are more important….

“The headstrong, know-it-all willfulness of this administration, which threatens our freedom at home, also threatens our survival in the international jungle, because Obama seems determined to do nothing that will stop Iran from going nuclear.

“The Obama administration goes through all sorts of charades at the U.N. and signs international agreements on sanctions that have been watered down to the point where they are not about to bring Iran’s nuclear weapons program to a halt. The purpose is not to stop Iran but to stop the American people from realizing what Obama is doing or not doing.

“We have a strange man in the White House. This election is a crossroads, because either his power will be curbed by depriving him of his huge Congressional majorities or he will continue on a road that jeopardizes both our freedom and our survival.”

Carrie Lukas also wrote just before the Tuesday elections what this was all about: “The 2008 election was a cult of personality. Voters were swept up in electing someone they saw as a superhero, an icon. This election is all about ideas. Rather, this election is about one central idea: That America is teetering on the edge of transforming into a country fundamentally different from the one today’s voters were born into. That this last Congress boldly strode toward changing the relationship between citizen and state, leaving the American people more dependent on government and advancing government’s control over the economy. That the country must be pulled back from the precipice.

“Newly politically-active Americans have taken to demonstrating because they see such urgency in the current situation. If this Administration is allowed to continue its march toward bigger, more intrusive government – in fact, if America isn’t quickly dragged several steps back away from bigger government – then we will be consigned to a permanently less free, less prosperous, less innovative country.

“Our taxes will be higher. Our national debt will continue to balloon. The private sector will be chipped away and replaced with larger bureaucracies and government-provided services. Americans don’t want this. Many support the concept of a government safety net for those truly in need, but recognize that our government has long since abandoned that mission, instead seeking to foster a dependent middle class. And Americans know that such dependency comes with a high price, as innovation, individual initiative and personal control melt under government’s warm embrace.

“Americans don’t want a government that treats them like children. They don’t want cradle-to-grave care from Washington bureaucrats. They want a government that does its job – and only its actual job as articulated by the Constitution – well. They want independence.”

In the hours and days to come the exact numbers will become available. But at this early stage it looks like Obama and his Democrats are in big trouble. That is good news for so many long-suffering Americans. And it is good news the world over. Conservatism is not dead yet.