It is customary, when disturbances follow a verdict of the kind delivered by the Ferguson grand jury, for those in authority to buttress their appeals for calm with a higher calling: the rule of law. Without it there would be chaos; only through it can there be order. As President Barack Obama said on Monday: “We are a nation based on the rule of law so we need to accept that this was the special jury’s decision to make.”

A crowd of anti-immigration protesters in Oracle, Arizona, gathered in July to block a bus they’d heard was full of children from Central America who had crossed the border unaccompanied, and possibly illegally, and were supposed to be arriving at a local shelter. Seeing a school bus approaching, Adam Kwasman, a Republican state legislator, broke off from a rant about Lady Liberty to tweet: “Bus coming in. This is not compassion. This is the abrogation of the rule of law.” He then joined the mob of protesters. He later told a television reporter: “I was able to actually see some of the children in the bus – and the fear on their faces … This is not compassion.”

In the end, there was no Republican wave. Indeed, ideologically it was barely a ripple. Unlike 2010, with the Tea Party, or 2006, when the Democrats took over, there was no all-encompassing agenda or over-arching theme. The Republicans won the US midterms – there’s no denying that – but they didn’t win as big as it first seems.