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[–] Kurplow 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

I think you're ignoring most of the institutions of government, and how power would shift over the next four years. A party cannot advance policy with courts alone.

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[–] DickHertz ago 

Nor can it advance by losing elections so I have to strongly disagree that the best outcome for the democrats is losing the election for the Whitehouse under any circumstances. When you get two years of Senate control plus the Whitehouse plus the ability to make a huge and lasting change in the judiciary that's not nothing.

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[–] Kurplow 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago  (edited ago)

You appear to be under the assumption the Senate turns blue tomorrow. I don't expect it to, but 538 is giving odds very close to a coin flip.

Let me restructure my position: If the dems don't take the Senate, they would be better off (in the long term) to spend the 2016-2020 term building resistance at the state level, and in Congress--because if they don't, when they eventually do lose the White House, they will have less of a hold on power even than they will if they lose now--and without the Senate they won't have accomplished anything anyway. It's not hard to imagine what the GOP would do in 2020 with the White House and the Senate (you're already imagining the democrats doing it)--only, the GOP would have the majority of State Legislatures and gubernatorial seats and perhaps multiple open Supreme Court seats.

I still have a lingering sense that there is nothing the dems could accomplish in those two years that would truly make it any harder for GOPers to reassert control post 2020 (because of how many other institutions they control) if the dems allow their power base to corrode further, even if they do take the senate, but I'll cede the ground.