Let’s face it. The past week has seemed like a giant loss for the Democratic Party. Not only did the Republicans maintain the House and the Senate, but Donald Trump overcame all odds and became our next President. The overall mood of Democrats across the nation seems to be more pessimistic about the future of our country. However, I think that Democrats will be happy to know that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
The next four years
In 2020, Trump will want to be elected to another term. This means that in his first 4 years, he can’t do anything too controversial or do anything that would completely ruin his chance of winning again. In fact, he’d do quite the opposite. In addition to this, the slim margin in the Senate means that he’ll most likely have to have bipartisan support for any legislation he wants passed. Only a few swing voters could kill a piece of controversial legislation. This means his first four years will probably consist of a lot on uncontroversial legislation that has support from both sides of the aisle. This is probably why he’s been talking up better infrastructure which has support from both sides of the aisle. Expect the next four years to be somewhat docile, with only a few small bumps in the road.
Taking back Congress
Historically speaking, the political party that was just elected to the White House does not do well in the following years’ midterm elections. That’s why we see massive Democratic defeats in 2010 and 2014 right after Obama was elected and re-elected. This means that in 2018, the Democrats could take back the Senate and maybe even the House of Representatives. Although they didn’t take control back, they made up a lot of ground this year, and makes it easier in 2018, when there are more Democrats on the ballot for Senate than the Republicans.
The Future of the DNC
If the DNC plays this right, they will take some of their focus away from federal politics for a little while and focus on state legislatures. This is because the state legislatures will redraw the House of Representatives’ Map after the Census in 2020. One of the main reasons why Democrats have failed to take back the House from the Republicans is because of the gerrymandered districts that favor more safe Republican seats. State legislatures draw these maps, so if they can win back enough legislatures, they may have a chance at regaining the House back. This is something that the Republicans may have their focus taken away from that the Democrats can capitalize on.
If the Democrats could capitalize in some of these areas, maybe in a few decades, 2016 will not have been such a bad year for them.
