Republicans panic over Trump tariffs: Last time "we lost the House and the Senate for 60 years"
Source: Salon
Published April 3, 2025 9:50AM (EDT)
On Tuesday, a liberal judge cleaned out her conservative rival in a pivotal court race in Wisconsin, while GOP House candidates in two Florida districts underperformed Donald Trump's 2024 result by more than 15 points, sending jolts of panic through a Republican Party wary of what those portend for the 2026 midterms. And that's before the president announced "reciprocal" tariffs Wednesday that some Republican lawmakers fear will wreak havoc on both the economy and their standing among voters.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., was a beneficiary of both the 2010 and 2014 midterm backlash against former President Barack Obama, which carried him to the speakership of the North Carolina House of Representatives and then to the Senate, respectively. On Wednesday, he warned in an interview with Politico that Republicans risk inviting the same fate in 2026, when he is up for re-election.
“What we don’t want to do is overreach,” Tillis said. “We’ve got to be careful not to do the same thing. And I think that these elections are going to be proxies, or almost like weather devices for figuring out what kind of storm we’re going to be up against next year.” Some of his colleagues see precedent even further back in time, worrying that voters, already restive over Trump's cuts to vital government services, will blame the GOP for any fallout from the tariffs and inflict on the party the kind of electoral devastation not seen since the Great Depression.
"When [President William McKinley], most famously, put tariffs on in 1890, they lost 50% of their seats in the next election,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told reporters. “When Smoot and Hawley put on their tariff in the early 1930s, we lost the House and the Senate for 60 years. So they’re not only bad economically, they’re bad politically.”
Read more: https://www.salon.com/2025/04/03/panic-over-tariffs-last-time-we-lost-the-and-the-senate-for-60-years/
Your "leaders" (Muskrat and 45) didn't just "overreach", they did a "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" on the federal government, the U.S. Constitution, and the people of the United States.
= new reply since forum marked as read
That’s all they care about! It’s not about you assholes it is the needs of your constituents which maybe, finally, they will realize you don’t give a damn about!
Too late Thommy T!
Really, that was a burst out laughable line by Tillis, a yowser!
What? There sure as hell was!
THAT was the time when an ideological, philosophical, and economic switch was happening to the parties, which lead to a wholesale rejection of the GOP due to Hoover's (and the bankster) policies. There were a number of demographics like AAs, who were still Republican (like my politically-active great-great-uncle) due to Lincoln, who were being heavily recruited by northern Democrats.
The divisiveness leading up to a split included what was going on post-WWI, with the agitation from the Suffrage Movement (remember that?) and then later with the Temperance movement (the equivalent to the "Mom's (against) for Liberty" ) the latter triggering that "minor" event that caused the passage of a Constitutional Amendment - PROHIBITION! 
THAT Amendment was finally repealed with another Amendment under FDR in 1933.
Did you forget about all the immigration and anti-immigrant fervor in the 1930s?
What goes down in infamy was the U.S.'s refusal to allow the S.S. St. Louis, holding almost 1000 Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, to dock. Despite our getting involved in WWII with the 1941 Pearl Harbor incident, we were in the background harassing and blockading Japanese ships in the 1930s, all while the war was already underway in Europe in the 1930s (leading to piles of people leaving Europe to come here).
During the "Dust Bowl" (remember that? No neither you nor I were born but my parents were
), you had untold numbers "migrating" within the U.S., many being harassed and exploited (see "Grapes of Wrath" ).
The only difference between back then and now is that back then there was no "television", "cable", "satellite", or "internet" to magnify it. But the same kind of crap was going on, notably ethnic and religious clashes (particularly Protestant vs Catholic).
And you are correct, I completely forgot about immigration, and didn't realize the 18th Amendment wasn't repealed until 1933. Still though, do you think it's as bad as today? I guess I'm just used to remembering being a kid in the 80's, and hearing about Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill having a beer. Imagine that happening today? 
when Democrats controlled both chambers, until the 80th Congress, when the GOP finally made a breakthrough, post-WWII, with Truman in office.
That 1930s era was when the tariff mess was going on, where Smoot-Hawley had been passed in 1930 with the 71st Congress (all GOP-controlled). The latter part of the 72nd Congress ended with a split and a (D)-controlled House + (R)-controlled Senate for the 2nd session, and Democrats took it all with the 73rd.
So 1933 - 1947 is 14 years right there.
After that brief interlude of (R) control with the 80th, the 81st Congress was back to (D)-majority again starting 1949. And then it switched back again to (R) with the 83rd Congress in 1953, and then to a split (D)/(R) in the Senate (House still majority-(D)), with the 84th, and finally from the 85th Congress all the way to the 104th Congress that began in 1995, it was all-(D).
So in reality, the (R)s only had about 4 years (5 if you count the split with the Senate at the end of the 84th for the 2nd session but then that would cancel out due to 72nd Congress split of (D)s in control of the House), where 1995 - 1933 = 62 years, and then subtract 4 years over that period when (R)s were in total control, and you have 58 years, which is close enough to 60!
I know my history/poly-sci mom lived through that and talked about it alot!
I'm just a very technical type of guy. So those four years count as a break. Even if it was one year, the count still resets to zero. At least in my book. 
Here's a related question for ya: What's the longest time the Democrats were out of power in the House and Senate? I know it was after the Civil war, but for howe long?