Ha ha ha, a whole large contingent of 9 "typical" (who knows) Democrats has condemned the Democratic Party, according to Hal reading the NYTimes. Stop the presses!

When insufferable woke activists dominate the conversation with unworkable or less important priorities, it kind of dilutes the whole pool of trust. We had this one guy show up the other day with the crazy idea that free trade had destroyed global society the last 35 years (ignoring actual barriers to trade and economic plus other successes), and then zip, he was off. Which was prolly better that way - otherwise it would have been "alien free traders are stealing your babies" or long diatribes about "corporatism". 

Unions, students and such were always advocating on the left, but they also did more if the groundwork for the party. The destruction of unions has not helped party allegiance, and students outside an Obama election tend to be disengaged and skeptical.

But if you have left & right spouting Reaganisms like "government *is* the problem", sure, trust in the system decays. Look at the nonsense around vaccines - what could the "elitist Dem leadership" do to defuse all the nonsense around anti-vaxx and whatnot - does the NYT focus group address how many Americans are literally crazy to the point of seeing UFOs in their bathtubs? Not to mention how the right regrouped to push Jan6 fandom the past year pretty successfully - a good portion of the country thinks 2020 was stolen despite a lot of recounts and totally failed lawsuits showing bubkus. It's reality-challenged out there.