Reading both pieces this thought comes to me: why is Trump the wake up call on all of this? He's such a loony anomaly and winning via a minority of the vote in such an unusual way, I am thinking he's not even that applicable to the question of the Dem party going downhill. Obama ran on bi-partisanship the first time around. Trump played disliking most of the GOP as much as possible being their candidate as well as the Dems.

What about NYC not electing a Democrat as mayor for 16 years? How come that is always ignored? Not a canary in the coal mine? It's like this: you pay lots of taxes during Koch and Dinkins, and all you get is: things get worse, go downhill. Even liberal educated elites will go for a little more authoritarianism and tightening of civil liberties when that happens.

I really wonder what Michael Wolraich thinks about that: no Democratic mayor in NYC for 16 years.

I truly think neither party serves the reality of the electorate very well anymore. It's been "let's throw these bums out, try the other bums for a while" nearly my whole life. Every once in a while a movement like the Tea Party comes and  throws some passion at one of them and they mean something for a short while.

And yes, presidents don't really apply because they are mainly elected on the charisma factor. (Even Jimmy Carter was considered charismatic at one time.)

Why do poor whites view the world differently than poor, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians? Aren't whites choosing to isolate themselves?

Underfunded inexperienced candidates whose campaigns were sabotaged by the DNC managed to narrow it to within 6 percentage points (Mello and Quist) and 7 percentage points (Thompson) of the winning incumbent Republicans in deep red counties, broadly outperforming Clinton. Seems very promising. We will see how various progressive candidates in deep red America start polling for the midterms. 

Rebuilding the infrastructure of progressive politics in these areas is going to take a bit of time, but it is looking very promising. People are obviously much more sensitive to progressive arguments. But messaging has an uphill battle to fight against local partisan republican press as well. 

I have a bit of time on my hands for once, so some thoughts. 

Poorer voters are caught in the sway of a right-wing populist movement four-decades in the making.

I'll happily bow to your superior familiarity with that phenomenon any day.

You really aren't somewhat encouraged by the pretty decent showings by Mello, Thompson and Quist?

It's early days still, but if they can garner, out of total anonymity, in a few short months, and with a huge financial disadvantage, that good a score, there is some openness to at least an anti-establishment version of the democratic message it seems to me. 

Correct me if I'm way off base, but it has always seemed to me that their virulent anti-dem posturing has a few different origins. Sure, there is a lot of basic racism and bigotry. But beside that, we can't just ignore that there is a lot of understandable (not necessarily justified, but just comprehensible) resentment towards coastal elites and the party they see as the vehicle of those elites. These elites talk blithely about the economic difficulties in these rustbelt/heartland areas with a shrug of "well, they should just move to the coastal cities", not realizing that such indifference is taken as a a terrifying threat in these areas. All they have left there is community and their faith based way of life that they can't imagine being able to hold on to in the big city. I cringe every time I see how these regions are portrayed on late night tv. Because they are white, we don't think of it as punching down when we mock them. How do you think that is received? Tribal instincts kick in when a candidate says the opponent's supporters can be reduced to baskets of deplorables just as much as when a candidate says the opponent's 47% supporters are dependent on the government and believe they are entitled to health care ... Call-out culture just closes off separate camps and builds walls between them. Insults are so so very gratifying, but they aren't a productive way to elicit self-reflection, especially when it is moneyed elites insulting the poor and desperate. 

Why has it taken a decade of a raging opioid epidemic for the federal government to start reacting, in, what, 2015? Where was the federal aid to mitigate the massive losses of jobs after NAFTA and China's accession to the WTO and then the financial crisis. Everyone outside of white working class men have been part of the American story of progress - however flawed - over the last forty years. WWC men are the only demographic whose income has stagnated over that whole period. If you are clearly not part of the Great American Project, then being resentful is the least one could expect. Especially if any complaints are shot down as white privilege. 

The reason the democratic message doesn't get through? Because democrats don't even try to communicate that message in these areas. How many uncontested seats are there in these areas? Talking and listening would be a start. But it's not like we can just expect increasing signs that Trump will betray his promises to them to suddenly swing them towards the Democrats, a party that so obviously despises them. It's going to take months and years of organizing, running, failing and running again, for local and state elections before it starts to really sink in that the Democrats are taking their concerns and welfare seriously. 

I listened to Marc Maron interviewing Louis CK a few months back, and telling Louis that when he, Louis, had kids Marc hadn't expected him to "show up", and that he was impressed to see him actually doing it, the whole daily making of breakfast lunch and dinner, brain-desolving boring games, careful and thoughtful education. The whole thing. I like that expression for this sense of caring: Showing up. The democrats need to show up. They're not doing it so far. It's like an absentee dad turning up at the door after the mom's latest nightly binge-drinking, and wondering why the kids aren't immediately on his side against this mother who is obviously worse than him. It doesn't strike me as so different in politics. You have to Show Up to earn their ear, to earn their trust, and then maybe if what you have to say is worth it, their vote. 

DM me, I'll try to remember. Found a gem in Linz, but a bit far away...