Thread by @awprokop

I do think this is relevant to the discussion @perrybaconjr and @whstancil recently had about the divide between older, cautious Democratic leaders and the (relatively) younger generation more open to partisan confrontation bluegrassbeat.substack.com/p/how-cities-m…

https://twitter.com/awprokop/status/1341875709610999815

.@whstancil cites the brutal 1968-88 period for Dems (presidentially) as shaping this thinking. But for Congress you don't have to go back that far.

Dems lost the House in 1994, couldn't get it back for 12 years. They lost it again 4 years later, couldn't get it back for 8 years

To me the generous interpretation is that Pelosi believes she knows, from hard-won experience, that Democratic majorities are very fragile — and that, if you lose them, it could take a very long time to get them back.

As with many generational conflicts, there's a divide between the older people saying "we've seen this all before, we know how this works" and younger people saying "hey, wake up, things have changed."

But in general the 2020 results vindicated the viewpoint that Dems have a very tough road in Congress, they came surprisingly close to losing the House and will end up with either 50 or 48 Senate seats.

Would more boldness and partisan "fight" have saved these seats for House Democrats? Seems unlikely given that the seats that flipped were mostly in Trump-voting districts.