Seeing the early voting numbers from Nevada makes me optimistic about this election. (Most of this year's votes are in, Dems up 3%.) I think we win the House, keep the Republican Senate majority around 51-49, and pick up some Governor and state-level offices that set up 2020 well. I'll make more specific predictions on Election Eve.
But suppose that doesn't happen. Suppose we don't even win the House and Republicans pick up a few Senators. Nate Silver has this as a 15% outcome. Best to be prepared, so here are my thoughts in advance for a bad Election Night:
We are, of course, going to have two more years of bad things because Republicans are in power. They'll expend resources on arbitrary cruelty towards vulnerable people when Democrats would expend them on solving major national and global problems. There are all kinds of things that could go horribly wrong on larger scales too.
But there will still be time to prevent the total collapse of democracy, with total Republican dominance, that defeat in 2020 might bring about. If Republicans win 2020, they'll have the Supreme Court and new gerrymandering and the vote suppression offices. Then it may be 10 years or more of Trump-like Republicans rather than two, and I don't even know what kind of dystopia we'll be at the end of that. But losing 2018 doesn't mean we lose 2020.
Maybe in 2020, the stock buyback bubble just popped and Trump botched the response so the market crashed more. And even after Mueller was fired, a State AG picked up the pieces and convicted Trump of giving $200 million in Magnitsky Act fines back to the Russian mafia in exchange for hacking Hillary. If none of this had happened in 2018 and we came close, having it by 2020 probably adds up to a winning year.
I've hoped to win 2020 in 2018. Winning the offices that control voting in 2018 and just letting natural Democratic majorities do their work in 2020 is a big part of the strategy. Protecting Mueller will help too. And the Senators we win now, we keep until 2024.
If you're doing a lot this year (thank you so much people who are calling/ texting voters or knocking on doors!) you're doing amazing things to build the path out of the Trump Administration. But if we lose this time, please don't stop. I'll be right here with you for the next two years doing the weird set of things I do to help. They won't have beaten us yet.
But suppose that doesn't happen. Suppose we don't even win the House and Republicans pick up a few Senators. Nate Silver has this as a 15% outcome. Best to be prepared, so here are my thoughts in advance for a bad Election Night:
We are, of course, going to have two more years of bad things because Republicans are in power. They'll expend resources on arbitrary cruelty towards vulnerable people when Democrats would expend them on solving major national and global problems. There are all kinds of things that could go horribly wrong on larger scales too.
But there will still be time to prevent the total collapse of democracy, with total Republican dominance, that defeat in 2020 might bring about. If Republicans win 2020, they'll have the Supreme Court and new gerrymandering and the vote suppression offices. Then it may be 10 years or more of Trump-like Republicans rather than two, and I don't even know what kind of dystopia we'll be at the end of that. But losing 2018 doesn't mean we lose 2020.
Maybe in 2020, the stock buyback bubble just popped and Trump botched the response so the market crashed more. And even after Mueller was fired, a State AG picked up the pieces and convicted Trump of giving $200 million in Magnitsky Act fines back to the Russian mafia in exchange for hacking Hillary. If none of this had happened in 2018 and we came close, having it by 2020 probably adds up to a winning year.
I've hoped to win 2020 in 2018. Winning the offices that control voting in 2018 and just letting natural Democratic majorities do their work in 2020 is a big part of the strategy. Protecting Mueller will help too. And the Senators we win now, we keep until 2024.
If you're doing a lot this year (thank you so much people who are calling/ texting voters or knocking on doors!) you're doing amazing things to build the path out of the Trump Administration. But if we lose this time, please don't stop. I'll be right here with you for the next two years doing the weird set of things I do to help. They won't have beaten us yet.
