They will know, and they will never trust you again, part 2

(This was written in comments to someone who is determined to believe that the Democrats did nothing wrong in past 30 years as they lost the country outside of major urban areas. She decided I was a racist.)

And so it is. There are too many people who were thrown out of their homes and into long-term unemployment in the last administration, which all the while claimed to be for the “working class” or “people” or whatever. You can’t message these things away; these were concrete things which people will remember for the rest of their lives. It was the same during the William Clinton administration, though the pain was less and mostly on the poor and African-Americans.

In the clinch, when it came time to turn out the voters, slight majorities voted for someone who at least promised to do something for them in concrete terms.

And maybe Sanders could have won. Maybe. Or maybe the two-foot shelf of Republican oppo research would have done him in.

I think most of the argument blames the wrong things for the loss of the last election. The immediate causes were sexism, racism, bad press (Comey!), and bad luck. But in the previous administration the Democrats didn’t deliver on major things and people knew. You complain that the Republicans prevented them? Perhaps. But where were the arrests of bankers? Why did the Democrats not make a big loud show and embarrass the Republicans? But the Democrats couldn’t; they would have had to go against the huge amount of money that puts them in office. Instead, they quietly rolled over, just as they are rolling over now as Trump guts the government. Oh, they’re talking a better game. But why are any of Trump’s cabinet nominees getting through? (The DeVos nomination has just been passed out of the committee. Why couldn’t the Democrats have denied the Republicans a committee quorum on every nominee?) Why aren’t the Democrats fighting tooth and nail every step of the way? If ever there was a time to do it, it is now.