What Atlas was thinking around this time in 2006, 2010, and 2014

[pbrower2a]

Few people have had as swift a rise in American politics as Barack Obama. There was one portent: when he was a State Senator in Illinois, the TV journalist Tom Brokaw said "Watch this man". Brokaw is not given to hype, but he could see something in a state legislature that one rarely sees in them at his age. Journalists at his level don't usually pay attention to state legislatures unless they are caught up in scandal, and don't give attention just because the legislator wants it. 

He may have been good, but he should have been ready for 2012 or 2016, and not 2008.  Some of us saw the economic bubble for what it was and expected it to burst, the timing deciding whether Democrats or Republicans would win the Presidency. If the bubble burst in the summer of 2008 or earlier, then the Democrats would win the Presidency. October 2008 or later, the Republican elected to the Presidency would be the New Herbert Hoover. 

Senate -- most of us saw any chance of  Democrats winning a Senate majority that year as an inside straight, statistically a bad gamble. Such was not economic in cause.

House -- The six-year itch usually applies, and enough things other than the economy would allow Democrats to have a chance. 

2010 -- if you were a Democrat you thought that your elected officials were good enough to have avoided getting swept away in a wave that in fact happened. After the election we recognized the hard reality of American politics: he who has the gold makes the rules. Romney was a reasonable choice for Republicans, as he was less of a joke

Once the Tea Party won, many of us thought that Obama would be a one-term President. Again, money rules in political life.

2014 -- Democrats didn't see the other wave coming. Obama wasn't that bad, but there is the six-year itch. Republicans had the only asset that mattered -- campaign funds and organization, and that would seemingly decide everything.

Republicans had an unusually weak field awaiting them for the Presidency, and Donald Trump was a sick joke. He still is, but I would guess that the only people who could predict that he would be elected to the Presidency were casting horoscopes. As the mirror of the wave, 2016 should have been a good year for Democrats in House and Senate elections -- and it was only an abatement of the wave.

2018 -- I see Donald Trump as a singularly awful President who has been lucky that the hurt from policies that a near-majority of Americans on about every issue have fallen on the same near-majority. He will slip up, and one part of his constituency will get hurt -- and that will make him a one-term President. We may have a habit of re-electing our Presidents, with three consecutive two-term Presidents... but that comes to an end. He is not going to win  support from people who voted for Hillary Clinton; he can't lose much support from those who voted for him and still win the votes that he needs to hold onto the combination of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin or the combination of Florida and either Michigan, North Carolina, or Pennsylvania.

If Democrats do not win the Senate majority in 2018 they get it in 2020 because the Republicans have many Senate seats in 'purple' states (Iowa and North Carolina) and at least one 'blue' (Atlas Red) state (Colorado). 

Democrats have a huge quarterback controversy, so to speak -- just as did Republicans in 2016. The dominant factor in the 2020 election will be either Donald Trump (or should something happen to Trump), Mike Pence. Pence will be even more objectionable -- the sort of person who would suggest that anyone who dislikes his policies to simply read the Bible.  I read enough of the Bible (the Sermon on the Mount) and I can in no way excuse Donald Trump.