There's no sugarcoating this. The election was terrible for America. We must now endure President-Elect Donald Trump 's renewed assault on the Constitution and destructive ideas that could wreck the economy and put us all in danger (pray there's no repeat pandemic with anti-science Robert F.

Kennedy Jr. whispering in the president's ear). It was equally devastating for the Democratic Party , which utterly failed to stop a felonious autocrat.

But it's also not quite as bad as it looks at first. In the short term, there is a tested playbook that Democrats can use to mitigate the damage. They must apply these tools with energy and determination.

In the long term, if Democrats can face some hard truths, bottoming out could be exactly what they need: the necessary impetus for them to have a stronger future. Here's what the future could look like: In the short term, the old joke "how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time" is a bit on the nose, but apt: once you break down the realities of Trump's second term, it's not quite as overwhelming. For one thing, it's not forever.

This will be Trump's final term . And while that seems to suggest a four-year problem, it's mostly a two-year problem. Historically, a president's ability to accomplish anything legislatively wanes significantly after their first two years (look no further than our current president ).

Every mid-term election of the past 20 years brought a major thermostatic backlash against the party of the president. Even .