The midterm elections are over. The president and Democrats did not so much lose as they abdicated to Republicans and the extreme right–wing of the Republican party, the Tea Party, by not effectively communicating a persuasive message of their vision for the nation, accomplishments, and the heavy lifting they were doing on behalf of the American people.

Not insignificant in this election was the issue of race. Under the guise of big government, out-of-control spending and the size of the deficit, the big elephant in the room and the root of opposition against the president was white working-class anger, disappointment and an inability to accept an African American president.

Hindsight is perfect. Yet it is instructive to examine where the president may have lost his way. Over the past 22 months, the president and Democrats, with the exception of the House leadership and Speaker Pelosi, have shown little stomach for standing up to Republican and Tea Party demonization and unrelenting personal attacks against the president and Democratic majority, in spite of an impressive health care bill, Wall Street reforms, tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses, and the creation of more private sector jobs than in the eight years under the Bush administration.

By Democrats not aggressively challenging these attacks, mistruths and distortions early, by not taking their case directly to the people in simple terms and often, a vacuum was created which the Republicans and Tea Party promptly filled with negative ads articulating a consistent unifying message, though flawed, delivered by party leadership and candidates, in a political season, where facts don’t matter. These negative ads flooded the airwaves and Internet fueled by millions of undisclosed corporate dollars which were made legal by the recent U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, Citizens United. It will be up to Congress to find out who is controlling the conversation around this new law and decide what must be done. But it is the American people who must educate themselves, using whatever skills they possess to understand corporate influences in the political process, and what is in their own and America’s best interest.

The Republicans are now compelled to govern with their Tea Party cohorts. However, they will find it far more difficult to translate their victory into the changes being demanded by those who put them in office. Expectations are enormous. To get consensus on such promises not to raise the debt ceiling, to cut $100 billion out of the budget, repeal the health care law and cut entitlement spending will be daunting. If the new majority buys into minority leader Mitch McConnell’s goal to ensure the president does not get a second term, there will little progress.

President Obama stated early that the jobs of the future would be based on energy, education and infrastructure. We’re coming off a technological revolution that has the potential to innovate in a way that will significantly advance growth in business. The challenge for him will be to absorb the message and fight for the kind of structural changes necessary to prepare Americans for jobs in the future to ensure our continued global competitiveness. He will need to put up his dukes and come out of the corner fighting for the American people as he did in the 2008 campaign and toward the end of the mid-terms. The Democrats, mindful of the importance of gubernatorial races and redrawing of district lines, will have a profound impact on the 2012 elections. The president and Democrats will have to hold the line at all costs. The president cannot cave in to Republican and Tea Party demands. If so, he may be met with an internal challenge from the Democratic party nomination in 2011. Such a scenario might empower another candidate such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, or Howard Dean to fill the vacuum. Under such a scenario, the president might be forced to withdraw and leave the White House with a failed presidency. It is inconceivable that he will let that happen. Given the will, capacity and tenacity of this brilliant president, though he shuns that public brawl with the conservatives, it will be necessary.

At a time when many hardworking Americans are reeling under the loss of pensions, 401(k) investments, jobs, who are in foreclosure or have lost their homes, who wake up every day wondering how they will pay the bills, the Republican congressional obstructionists who rebuffed the president’s agenda and most recent request for $50 billion in up-front money to build roads, rails, and runways that would create millions, may get a wake-up call as stimulus money dries up and states have to cut programs and jobs to balance budgets.

The Pikeety/Saez recent analysis of incomes of the super-rich, reported by James Pethokoukis in The New York Times, provides a shocking comparison with the average worker. They report one out of 34 workers in 2008 earned nothing in 2009, losing their jobs to overseas workers; that 74 of the so-called super-rich Americans earned $91 million, the same as 19 million lowest paid workers. These disparities among other factors are the result of corporate transfer of jobs overseas, an unwillingness of Congress to provide additional tax incentives to businesses to bring jobs home, and an appalling lack of will to address tax rates.

Democrats will need to follow models of innovation and their agenda to repeal tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, deliver additional tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses, adjust and defend the new health care law, brag on TARP outcomes, and stop all efforts to privatize social security. They must do what they can to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and focus on jobs and infrastructure, reminding the people daily of who is blocking the recovery.

The halcyon days are gone. We’re standing at the river’s edge. We swim or sink together. To paraphrase Jon Stewart at the end of the Stewart/Colbert rally in D.C. on Saturday “to restore sanity and/or fear,” he said, “We know instinctively as a people that we have to work together. There will always be darkness. Sometimes it isn’t the Promised Land. Sometimes, it’s just New Jersey.”

Gazette contributor Bettye Baker writes the weekly Oak Bluffs column for the Gazette from May through September. She lives in Gettysburg, Pa. and Oak Bluffs.