This year’s Republican electoral victory was a vivid reminder that I owe my life to a similar sweep. The 1946 elections were a disaster for Democrats; they lost fifty-four seats in the House and eleven seats in the Senate. For the first time in sixteen years, the Republicans controlled both houses.

My father was one of those defeated Democratic congressmen. A lawyer and civil engineer, he served for eight years as the sixth district state assemblyman for the Bronx. At that time, assemblymen served one-year terms, which means he won eight elections.

There were no primaries; Edward J. Flynn’s control of the party and the borough was uncontested. He titled his 1947 memoir You’re the Boss: My Story of a Life in Practical Politics. Flynn wore a suede glove over his iron fist. He bore no resemblance to the stereotype of the pot-bellied, cigar-smoking city boss. Urbane and well-read, Flynn was a quietly powerful presence in New York’s cacophonous, no-holds-barred politics.

Flynn’s influence extended far beyond the Bronx. A trusted adviser to FDR, he was influential in FDR’s successful run for New York governor in 1928 and for president in 1932. He was a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt. At the 1944 Democratic Convention, he played a decisive role in replacing FDR’s running mate Vice President Henry Wallace with Harry Truman. He accompanied FDR to the Yalta Conference in 1945.

My father’s association with Flynn began in 1932 when he volunteered as part of a coterie of young lawyers who worked behind the scenes at the Democratic convention to swing the New York delegation behind FDR. New York stuck with favorite son Al Smith, but FDR won the nomination, and my father came to Flynn’s attention. They were both the sons of Irish immigrants, graduates of Fordham Law School, and passionate supporters of FDR. In 1936, Flynn designated my father as a Bronx candidate for the state assembly. With Flynn’s blessing, he ran in 1944 for the congressional seat held by a retiring nine-term Democrat. My father won by a wide margin.

My father relished his time in Congress. He made friends with other representatives, including future House Speaker John McCormack and fellow freshman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. He won a reputation as a speechmaker and was one of the two New York representatives who rode FDR’s funeral train to Hyde Park.

My father looked forward to helping pass a national health-care bill that would provide a capstone to the progressive social legislation of the New Deal. He set sail in a safely Democratic district on what appeared to be a long career in Congress. It didn’t turn out that way. The 1946 “wave election” was a Democratic shipwreck. He went down with the ship.

Shortly after the election, he traveled to Washington to close his congressional office. My mother accompanied him, and they spent several nights at the Mayflower Hotel. She was forty, he was forty-three, they had two daughters, and he had just lost his job. They presumed, I think, to be out of the baby business. Nine months later my twin brother and I were born.

My mother never made a secret of the circumstances surrounding our birth. For her, the Republican sweep that ended the electoral merry-go-round keeping my father in Albany and Washington was a blessing. She welcomed the twins that the sweep brought her.

At one point, my father was mentioned for a high position in the Justice Department. My mother said if he intended to take up residence in Washington, he should look for a new wife. (She won.)

My father was a gifted storyteller. But he never spoke a word about his defeat. He disliked public displays of emotion. My mother said no man was ever less excited at fathering boy twins.

Ed Flynn gave my father the chance to run in 1948 and reclaim his seat. Certain that in a contest between unpopular Harry Truman and New York governor Tom Dewey, the Democrats faced another shellacking, he declined. In one of the most famous upsets in history, Truman defeated Dewey. The Democrats reclaimed both houses of Congress. The Democrat who ran in my father’s place scored a convincing victory.

My father went on to spend twenty-five years as a judge. He started his career wanting to be an actor. The bench proved a happy substitute. My mother was delighted to no longer be a political wife and to have her husband home. My brother and I inherited my father’s passionate admiration for FDR and his loyalty to the Democratic Party, and we both worked as speechwriters for Democratic governors.

As much as we loathed to see the triumph of Trump and his complaisant, venom-spewing acolytes, a part of us will always be grateful for the Republican sweep that brought us to be.