We won.
Yep. We won, we need to repeat that and intersperse it with "they lost".
Now brace yourself. The fury will be loud, viscious, and if you weren't paying attention between 1993 and 2001, you won't expect it. The beast was badly hurt last week and it wants vengeance. The noise machine will quickly build to a deafening roar. The hatred that was somewhat muted by the responsability of power will be completely unleashed. Guess what? It will all be aimed at us and our leaders. In an earlier diary, we saw how Elliot Spitzer defused Hannity(?). That is a marvelous case study of how to do it. Another approach that is also going to be helpful will be "in your face confrontation". Both should be studied and understood.
Conservatism and republicanism are the gods that failed. They tried to make their mandates into some sort of god given law. What the Republicans did was fail in so many ways: Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, the budget, and you can add your favorites to this list. That their ideas failed is not something that they will admit. The 1994 party change was decided with a smaller number of people participating than this year.
Where the Republicans were wrong, we need to say it over and over again. There is rarely a good time to back down and this is sure as hell not a time to back down. Kos did a good job of pointing out that if you consider the popular vote in the senate, this was a route. Six republican senators were terminated for cause. The voters of Virginia, Rhode Island, Ohio, Montana, Missouri, and Pennsylvania knew perfectly well what they were doing when they fired their senators. Those voters knew that they were giving up seniority in the senate to to make changes.
Do not forget. America won. The Republicans lost.