The biggest flaw Democratic activists have is fixating on the presidential race, as if just having "our wo/man" in the White House will make things right.
Sure, we won the Presidency relatively easily in 2008 and 2012, but because we didn't invest equal energy and effort (even to the tune of just turning out to vote) in the mid-terms of 2010 and 2014, we lost control of both chambers of Congress.
Now, if Clinton had won last year, the situation would have been survivable, because the status quo would have remained the first two years of the Obama administration, with its legislative achievements kept in place by a continuing presidential veto of any Republican attempts to overturn them. But, if we should win back the White House in 2020 but not flip both houses of Congress, the status quo will remain the mess that at least two and possibly four years of Trump/Republican hegemony will have left us. Just taking the Presidency and not Congress will mean that the new Democratic President, whoever they may be, may be able to use the bully pulpit to speak against the damage the Republicans will have created, but will be powerless to do more than stop any further damage. We'll still have the effects of the new tax law, the likely entitlement cuts coming next year, and the hamstringing of the ACA, and won't be able to do a thing about them, because a Republican House and/or Senate will dutifully block any attempts to alleviate the harm they have caused.
We need Congress. Now. And I'll go further: if we can't recapture at least one chamber in 2018, and be in a position to take the other in 2020, it barely matters what happens in that year's presidential race. We need to focus on this November, period.
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