"Republicans are going to wish Hillary Clinton won"

[Brittain33]

Sounds right. I wanted Clinton to win, but she was facing blockage in the House and terrible Democratic disenchantment in 2018.

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http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/republicans-are-going-to-wish-hillary-clinton-won.html

[ApatheticAustrian]

all true but: SC.

republicans decided, this is goal nr 1 and they got it.

[Hindsight was 2020]

I remember Harry Enten saying before the election that it would be better for either party if their side lost the election ironically enough for dems it will set up a midterm backlash that they need an for reps it could of set up what nymag is describing

[Virginiá]

Pretty much. IMO, this election always had 2 long-term outcomes:

1. Trump wins, Trump takes office and amid a spectacular display of incompetence and corruption, probably leads to some sort of a wave in 2018 that does significant damage downballot and limits GOP gains in the Senate. 2020 could see a Democrat taking back the White House with Congress on their side, and Republicans would have given up their best chance for long-term control of the Senate in the 2020s. The chances of Republicans losing massive clout in the next round of redistricting is high, considering how many open gubernatorial races there will be that they currently hold.

2. Clinton wins, and in 2018 Democrats face another midterm bloodbath that depletes them so heavily in the Senate that Republicans get close to, or possibly even obtain a filibuster proof majority. Because their majority is so big (58-60+ Senators sounds about right), it takes Democrats years to gain control back and possibly not until the mid-2020s or later, depending on who wins the presidency over the next 8-12 years. By 2020 Republicans could have taken back the White House with majorities in Congress as large as Democrats had in 2008, and god knows what power in the states, leading to another redistricting rout at the expense of Democrats. There wouldn't be enough jars for my liberal tears in this scenario

Short-term, Trump presents some policy gains and the Supreme Court for the GOP. If he serves 2 terms, the federal judiciary will get a large booster shot of young, conservative judges. However, the depletion to GOP ranks downballot in the states and the House, and the damage Trump is doing to the GOP brand among young voters, might ultimately prove Trump was not worth it - not by a mile.

[mvd10]

Yeah, under normal circumstances parties should try to win every election, poisoned chalice or not, but long term it would have been better for the Republicans if they had lost, especially if they managed to keep senate control. 2018 would have been a bloodbath and in 2020 we probably would be looking at president Cotton (who actually is interested in conservative policies unlike Trump) with 58+ seats in the senate.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Get me 7 young pro-life justices on the Supreme Court, and you can have control of government back at some point.

[Brittain33]

Get me 7 young pro-life justices on the Supreme Court, and you can have control of government back at some point.

If we think the 2016 election is a pyrrhic victory for Republicans, you can't begin to imagine the scale of pyrrhicism in an overturn of Roe v. Wade.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

Yeah, under normal circumstances parties should try to win every election, poisoned chalice or not, but long term it would have been better for the Republicans if they had lost, especially if they managed to keep senate control. 2018 would have been a bloodbath and in 2020 we probably would be looking at president Cotton (who actually is interested in conservative policies unlike Trump) with 58+ seats in the senate.

Perpetual war is a conservative policy?

[mvd10]

Yeah, under normal circumstances parties should try to win every election, poisoned chalice or not, but long term it would have been better for the Republicans if they had lost, especially if they managed to keep senate control. 2018 would have been a bloodbath and in 2020 we probably would be looking at president Cotton (who actually is interested in conservative policies unlike Trump) with 58+ seats in the senate.

Perpetual war is a conservative policy?

I was referring to things like medicare/social security reform, which obviously are not going to pass under Trump. Trump only cares about his wall and meaningless executive orders. I'm not saying that I'm a huge Cotton fan btw (he's still much better than Trump though).

[Vosem]

I think I mentioned that if Hillary had won, a veto-proof congressional majority in 2018 would've been an attainable goal. Oh, well.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

all true but: SC.

republicans decided, this is goal nr 1 and they got it.

strong possibility that they'll only get one slot (scalia→gorsuch) tho
and that the next dem president will be replacing kennedy and/or other right-wing justices

[Rjjr77]

No. Never Hillary, I would vote for almost anyone else.

[emailking]

Trump winning may ultimately be better for the Democrats politically, but it is also terrible for the country.

Remember the polls at one point appeared to put the house in play and made a Democratic takeover of the Senate an afterthought. So I think trying to get Clinton elected was still the smart play politically, even though in hindsight a narrow Clinton win might have been a political disaster. Nonetheless, I'd rather be facing a 2018 bloodbath than another 4 years of Trump.

[elcorazon]

Obviously the red state Democrats would all have been gone had Clinton won, but beyond that we can only speculate what 2018 would have been like. When it became clear that Clinton was going to win "in a landslide", Democrats here told us to not make overconfident predictions about 2018 because there "was no way to know for sure whether 2018 was going to be another 2010 or 2014". How the tables have turned!

I obviously disagree with this claim because of the Supreme Court, Clinton being a terrible person, Republicans holding the Senate (which wouldn't have happened had Clinton won), etc. It isn't easy to beat an incumbent president, and had Clinton won, she'd probably have been a two-term president, which would have been terrible for the country.

revisionist history is fun
or perhaps you meant a landslide similar to Trump's "landslide" victory he keeps describing

[emailking]

I think there were times it very much looked like she would win in a landslide.

[elcorazon]

I think there were times it very much looked like she would win in a landslide.

Not to me. Best it seemed like she could do was to win all the states she did win, plus PA, MI, WI, FL and NC (maybe OH, as well). Not sure that would've been considered a landslide by anyone other than someone with #45's pea-headed brain.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     "We want to lose this election for strategic reasons!" is an amazing bit of #Analysis that I had thought would be restricted to Atlas, but alas. Nevermind getting to select a SCOTUS nominee or doing something other than obstinately rejecting every bill for another four years; we really just ought to demoralize our opponents.

[Zioneer]

Get me 7 young pro-life justices on the Supreme Court, and you can have control of government back at some point.

No thanks.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Get me 7 young pro-life justices on the Supreme Court, and you can have control of government back at some point.

If we think the 2016 election is a pyrrhic victory for Republicans, you can't begin to imagine the scale of pyrrhicism in an overturn of Roe v. Wade.

A ballot initiative to ban abortion failed in Mississippi only a couple years back, yet these right wingers think that an overturn of Roe V Wade would go along smoothly. If Roe V Wade was overturned, it would go over like the GOP's failure on Obamacare...they would never ban it completely in a single one of the 50 states because whenever you force a Republican to own their own policies, they will immediately run from it every single time because they know their own policies are unpopular.

Personhood only failed in Mississippi because many people knew it went against Roe and thought it wouldn't stand in the courts.  Maybe rape or incest exceptions would be carved out, but abortion will be illegal one day in this country.

[Devout Centrist]

"Is X election a poisoned chalice?"

"Losing is good for us!"

"We won't face a backlash in 2 years."

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Get me 7 young pro-life justices on the Supreme Court, and you can have control of government back at some point.

Deal!

[Devout Centrist]

Get me 7 young pro-life justices on the Supreme Court, and you can have control of government back at some point.

If we think the 2016 election is a pyrrhic victory for Republicans, you can't begin to imagine the scale of pyrrhicism in an overturn of Roe v. Wade.

A ballot initiative to ban abortion failed in Mississippi only a couple years back, yet these right wingers think that an overturn of Roe V Wade would go along smoothly. If Roe V Wade was overturned, it would go over like the GOP's failure on Obamacare...they would never ban it completely in a single one of the 50 states because whenever you force a Republican to own their own policies, they will immediately run from it every single time because they know their own policies are unpopular.

Personhood only failed in Mississippi because many people knew it went against Roe and thought it wouldn't stand in the courts.  Maybe rape or incest exceptions would be carved out, but abortion will be illegal one day in this country.

Very few people want a total ban as is. Even with exceptions, it's a minority. Most favor something along the lines of a compromise before or in the second trimester.

[Brittain33]

     "We want to lose this election for strategic reasons!" is an amazing bit of #Analysis that I had thought would be restricted to Atlas, but alas. Nevermind getting to select a SCOTUS nominee or doing something other than obstinately rejecting every bill for another four years; we really just ought to demoralize our opponents.

I don't think you'll find a soul who would argue that losing in 2012 was good for Republicans, or bad for Democrats, given the consolidation of Obamacare.

I think the case for 2016 is unprovable but strong.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     "We want to lose this election for strategic reasons!" is an amazing bit of #Analysis that I had thought would be restricted to Atlas, but alas. Nevermind getting to select a SCOTUS nominee or doing something other than obstinately rejecting every bill for another four years; we really just ought to demoralize our opponents.

I don't think you'll find a soul who would argue that losing in 2012 was good for Republicans, or bad for Democrats, given the consolidation of Obamacare.

I think the case for 2016 is unprovable but strong.

     I won't deny that there were downsides to winning in a year when there were deep divisions in the electorate. To go from that to "it would have been better to lose" is a pretty big leap though.

[Brittain33]

     I won't deny that there were downsides to winning in a year when there were deep divisions in the electorate. To go from that to "it would have been better to lose" is a pretty big leap though.

We certainly won't know for sure until Election Day next year. Until then, it really is all speculation.