Please stop overreacting

[Virginiá]

We're about to lose supreme court for like, 20+ years, which is arguably the most important thing.

Not necessarily, but definitely possible and something I'm worried about. If Breyer and Ginsburg hold out and we win in 2020, we can seal the deal on that. Even if Kennedy retires/passes in the meantime and gets replaced, Clarence Thomas will be 78 in 10 years. Alito will be 76. The median age for a justice at retirement or death is currently 78-ish. Personally I think Ginsburg's refusal to retire years ago screwed liberals, but it is what it is. However, I should say that John Paul Stevens retired at what, 90? And Breyer is only 78 and it's not implausible he could go another 4 years.

Anyway, point is, there are still options but it will be a while. Maybe 15 years for Alito and Thomas to go, give or take.

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As for 2018, well, I'm just going to keep saying this: Deeply unpopular incumbent presidents hurt their party in midterms. Trump's current favorables are averaged at 37%, which was what Bush was at more or less in 2006. I would stop and consider that before predicting some Senate wipeout for Democrats.

In all likelihood, if Trump is as unpopular in 2018 as he is now, Republicans are going to be bled out at the House & state level. Republicans might even pick up a Senate seat or two thanks to their map, but elsewhere is a different story altogether. Republicans aren't immune to midterm backlashes.

[Virginiá]

We can probably win 23 seats if we win by at 5% in the HOR, right?

Yes, I mean, it's not uniform in the same way each time, but depending on what analysts you want to listen to, 5% could get us about 20 seats and 8 - 10% makes the House very competitive.

I'd keep a close eye on the Generic Congressional ballot polls through next midterm. If you start seeing months of high single/double digit numbers even well before the midterm, Republicans might be in for a wild ride. It's what it looked like in '06 and '08, when the public had effectively turned on them long before election day(s). Democrats didn't get any sustained periods of those kinds of numbers this year despite Trump, so if his presidency is really having a negative impact, I'd expect it to show up there.

And we really need to start retaking these deep red down ballot swing states. If there is a recession, we need to move on NV,FL,AZ,WI,MI,PA,ME,NH,NC,GA,NM...you name it.

And again, this is why I'm saying people need to relax in regards to the next 2-4 years. From the day Trump got the nomination, it was always my position that at least in terms of the states/Congress, Republicans lose whether they win or not this year. The next president was always more likely than not to get a recession:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States#Great_Depression_onward

The average over all of it is like every 4 or 5 years, but since the 80s, the average timespan is longer. Point is, we are overdue for a recession of some type. What happens now that Trump was elected by promise of making things great again, only for it to get noticeably worse under him? He'll be the 2nd Republican president in a row to get a recession while Democrats will again preside over the recovery. That's terrible for the GOP if that is what indeed happens. If Hillary was president and that happened, we'd be completely crippled at the state level for 2021's redistricting and thus subject to another 10 years of savage gerrymandering. It could be a substantially different situation now.

I think the glass half full version of this twisted election is much more reassuring.