How Democrats Learned to Expect the Worst

Jonathan Bernstein: “I’ve written several times about how Republicans interpreted their 1994 midterm-election landslide as a consequence of their obstruction strategy in Congress during 1993-1994. That lesson taught them to return to that strategy in 2009-2010, and after the Republican landslide in the 2010 midterms, they were certain to be just as obstruction-minded the next time Democrats had unified government, which turned out to be this year.”

“What I missed is how all of this affected Democrats: Many of them acquired the fatalistic conviction that unified government is certain to be no more than a two-year opportunity followed by at least a decade, and perhaps far more, in which Democrats can pass none of their priorities. Even worse: The memory of Senator Ted Kennedy’s death in 2009 and the upset victory by a Republican to replace him has focused Democrats on the possibility that their narrow Senate majority this year could disappear at any moment.”