Thread by @JewishWonk

I am seeing a lot of folks expressing a lot of intense emotions on Twitter in the aftermath of the elections.

Some things to consider if you are looking for something other than despair.

1) Parties that take unified control (House, Senate, White House) have a bad habit of overshooting.

Bear in mind this is how our institutions reflect what was a close election.

47.7% of Americans didn't want this.

A competent politician would govern from the center.

Donald Trump has no such instincts nor track record. The GOP coming to take unified control now is not the GOP of 2016. It's a fully MAGA party now.

There's no adults left in the room to hold them back.

This alarms many people because of the harm that will come with it. Totally fair!

But with that overreach comes backlash.

That backlash will come with protests. Those protests will be influential because they'll be concentrated where most of the people and most of the economic activity of this country reside.

It will slow a Trump admin down, even with unified control.

2) In most midterm elections, the president's party loses seats. Often they lose their House majority.

Trump's coalition includes a lot of low propensity voters.

The Democrats now enjoy the support of folks who show up in midterms.

The combination of the backlash, historical trends about midterms, and more reliable voting coalition means Trump's ability to do major harm has a time limit.

2 years.

There's a lot of harm Trump can do in two years. But it has a time limit. And some of the most damaging things Trump is considering doing take far longer than that to fully implement.

There's nothing wrong with worrying about what's coming. But it's important to understand the whole picture.

You are not powerless. Trump will face constraints.

Nobody can take your hope and resolve away from you.