One of the difficult things about Presidential politics is that you don’t get many data points. To be exact you get one every four years. Which makes the science of the matter rather inexact. For that reason we tend to over-correct for new data when it happens.

There has been much hand-wringing and dismay over Trump’s election. And rightly so, as far as I’m concerned. But its important to remember that this wasn’t some earth-shattering event. We are not living in a new paradigm. Trump won a single election very narrowly. That is all that has happened. And while that event may be momentous, important and instructive it would be foolish to throw out the baby with the bathwater and presume that everything we knew before has been proved false.

It also seems to me that people don’t truly appreciate how close it was. Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were all won by Trump on about a 1% margin or less. In Michigan he is currently about 12,000 votes ahead. Those three states between them decided the election, and they were incredibly narrow Trump victories.

Both parties should look at this result and see how fragile and in need of solidification are there respective coalitions. This is not cause for Democratic despair or Republican complacency.

If the next Democratic nominee can do even a little better with white voters, the map starts to look incredibly unfriendly for the Trump re-election campaign. And that is assuming Trump alienates none of his previous supporters, which seems to be happening already.

Because its much easier to be all things to all people the first time around when you are throwing stones from the outside. When you have been the ringmaster of the Washington circus for four years its very difficult to run as an outsider. Even harder is running against the establishment when you and your friends are the ones controlling all three branches of the Federal government.

This isn’t to say Trump will lose the next election. My point is that the Democrats won more votes this time, and fell only a hairs breadth short of winning enough electoral votes. This  could end up being public policy catastrophe, but it is certainly not an electoral one. Trump isn’t Reagan in 1984 or Nixon in 1972.  The Democratic party in America is not doomed or declining, merely defeated. And those who feel like their America has vanished should take heart. It isn’t dead. It’s only resting. Pining even. Not for the fjords, but for issues to galvanize it and leaders to show the way. Opposition presidencies have a tradition of providing both.