Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s prescription for his fellow Democrats — "take a chill pill, man" — is pure political quackery.
Sedatives are contraindicated for a moment like this. The proper Rx for Democrats right now is NoDoz, Red Bull, double shots of espresso or any other legal stimulant to keep them angry and energized, focused on Republican transgressions and determined to win back control of Congress as quickly as possible.
"It ain’t gonna happen in 2018," Dr. Downer said Monday in an on-stage interview at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. "If you think it’s gonna be a quick turnaround … it’s not."
Emanuel said "Democrats are at the lowest level since 1928 in the House of Representatives," but he was wrong. Democrats picked up six House seats in November.
But generally, yes, the numbers don’t look good for Democrats.
The other party holds the White House and owns a 79-seat advantage in the House along with an effective 20-seat advantage in the Senate. That party holds a 28-22 advantage in governorships and it has a so-called trifecta — the governorship plus control of the legislature — in 17 of those states.
Whoops, now it’s my turn to be wrong!
Those numbers I just gave you are actually from eight years ago. It was the Democrats who held all those political high cards after the election of Barack Obama, and it was the Republicans who looked doomed to decades of feckless pouting.
Did the GOP take a "chill pill" in early 2009?
Did the party faithful "go slow … real slow," in planning its revival, as Emanuel advised Democrats on Monday?
Did they heed Emanuel’s counsel to find moderate challengers "to take cultural issues off the table" and attract middle-of-the-road voters in swing districts?
Did they resign themselves to remaining a hopeful minority through Obama’s entire first term?
No.
They took their pep pills and megadoses of caffeine, and they fought like hell. Up and down the ballot, all across the country, at tea party protests and raucous town halls, Republicans tried to block the Democrats and to make the case for their vision of America.
And just two years later they had their mojo back and quite a bit more:
After the election of 2010, Republicans owned a 49-seat advantage in the House and they’d cut the effective Democratic majority in the Senate to just six seats (the two independent senators tended to caucus with the Democrats). Republicans took a 29-20 advantage in governorships in 2010, and a 19-11 advantage in trifecta states.
So where do the parties stand now?
A Republican is in the White House, of course. The GOP also has a 47-seat advantage in the House and an effective four-seat edge in the Senate, as well as a 33-16 advantage in governorships and a 24-7 lead in trifectas.
In other words, Democrats in early 2017 are in better shape at the federal level than Republicans were in early 2009, and in worse shape than Republicans were in early 2009 at the state level.
But Republicans in 2009 were faced with the daunting challenge of doing political battle with a new, inspiring Democratic president whose job-approval rating, according to Gallup, was 65 percent in the second week of February.
In the second week of February 2017, the new, terrifying Republican president has a job-approval rating, according to Gallup, of just 43 percent.
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of the fierce urgency of now.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel speaks of the fierce urgency of someday, but don’t get your hopes up.
There’s no reason for Democrats to "go slow" or tack away from their values. There’s every reason for them to, peacefully but relentlessly, fight using all legal means for what they believe in.
Spin doctor Emanuel, heal thyself.
Chilling out is for losers. History says to get fired up.
Twitter @EricZorn
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