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Joseph MicallefThere are two strategic lessons that can be drawn from the recent U.S. presidential election. Both indicate bad news for the Democratic Party.

The first lesson is that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Grand Coalition of 1932 is on its last legs. That coalition proved to be remarkably resilient and successful, giving the Democratic Party control of the White House for 48 of the last 84 years – 57 percent of the time. Roosevelt’s coalition began to unravel in the 1970s. Bit-by-bit, key pillars of the coalition – rural households, the old, southern Democrats, religious minorities and increasingly blue-collar workers – peeled away.

Left in the old Roosevelt coalition are Liberals, racial minorities and urban voters. The young and public sector unions, neither of which were a factor in the original 1932 Grand Coalition, have also joined the Democratic base. Of roughly 5,000 counties in the United States, Republicans carried about 4,700, while the Democratic Party carried only 300; although admittedly the counties won by the Democrats included many of the heavily populated urban counties.

The Democratic Party came out of the 2016 elections with 194 seats in the House of Representatives, its smallest position since 1930, 48 seats in the Senate, 15 governorships, and control of seven state legislatures. Since 2008, the Democratic party has lost 69 House seats, 13 Senate seats, 12 governorships and 900 seats in the state legislatures. The election of Barack Obama has turned out to be the best thing that has happened to the Republican Party since the election of Abraham Lincoln.

You might expect that a political party inflicted with such losses would undergo a period of self-examination and reassessment. Instead, the Democratic Party has doubled down, re-electing the same leadership that presided over its electoral collapse in expectation that the 2018 mid-term elections will herald the party’s comeback.

Mid-term elections are invariably a referendum on the party in the White House. Convinced that the Trump Administration will be a disaster, Democrats and their backers in the mainstream media are ready with their “I told you so,” confident their critique of Trump the candidate and soon to be president, will be vindicated.

Those hopes may be misplaced. Throughout the campaign, Trump portrayed himself as a successful dealmaker. He blamed the fact that “the U.S. doesn’t win anymore” on poor deal making by previous administrations. He has been quick to praise his newly announced cabinet appointees as people who know how to get a deal done. Trump’s preoccupation with dealmakers says a lot about how his administration will govern. Dealmakers are pragmatists – they are compromisers who know how to get across the finish line, unlike ideologues intent on maintaining their ethical virginity.

The Democrats, unwilling to face the reality of the 2016 election, have continued to criticize Donald Trump as unpresidential, lacking gravitas, too hopelessly addicted to his Twitter account to be able to seriously govern. This will prove to be a serious underestimation of the Trump administration. Twitter may be the public face of Trump’s government, but pragmatism is going to be its calling card.

Rather than being the beginning of its electoral comeback, 2018 may be the year that the Democratic Party finally hits bottom. The Senate, its last remaining bastion of electoral strength, may prove to be the next site of electoral disaster. There are 23 Democratic senators up for re-election in 2018. Three are from states that Trump lost by narrow margins. Ten are from states that Trump won, five of which he won by 19 points or better. It’s entirely possible the Republican Party will flip five or more Senate seats in 2018, decisively sealing its legislative majority.

The Democratic Party seriously underestimated Trump during the election. They seem intent on continuing to dismiss him. To the Republicans, no news could be better.

Joseph Micallef is a historian, best-selling author and, at times, sardonic commentator on world politics. 

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Democrats foolish

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