A weak President and anemic party leadership. A party more interested in the White House than anything else.
This.
Should've given Lieberman the LBJ Treatment to stay on with the public option, specifically the kind given to Paul Douglas.
Should've gone all the way on economic stimuli.
But most importantly, not bail on Hillary in '08, because all the bench besides her and Biden were lightweight sad-sacks and the GOP bench was really pathetic with no one going for it.
All of these would've led to stronger leadership that would've gotten things done.
I don't think it would've been much different if Hillary had been elected. It may have even been worse. Hillary is innately more to the right than Obama is, for one, and secondly, the GOP would've been more dedicated to her destruction than they were with Obama if she was President.
Either way, I blame Obama and Pelosi for the Democratic Party's implosion. If we're being honest with each other, the Democratic Party is sadly in a death spiral. 2006 was a brief resurgance but it was an anomaly in a nearly 30 year history of decline. The Democrats have been dying a slow death as a national party since 1994.
The GOP is dying, too, but it's taking longer for them because while the GOP base is shrinking, that base is more loyal to the party and more willing to get in line than the Dem base and they know their time is running out, which makes their action more urgent and passionate. The Democrats arrogantly believe they hold moral superiority and are holding to blind faith in demographic inevitability, and this has blinded them to both their optic weaknesses, internal struggles, and their need to give the base something.
The Democratic Party has taken minorities, and the white working class and working poor, for granted for a long while now; After the anemic Obama years, people are beginning to wake up to that. While I loathe the current GOP and its increasingly Randian ideology, they at least pay lip loyalty to wanting to help the middle class and give the poor false hope that tomorrow will be better. To drug addicted people in the Rust Belt, to coal miners in the South, and to poor college kids who are struggling to get a job, it seems that the GOP at least cares.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, just comes right out and says "Sorry, those jobs aren't coming back; your way of life is over", which, while true, is depressing. In smugness, the Democrats also allied themselves with loons like Lena Dunham and Bill Nye. White guys who have never done a damn thing wrong don't want to be told they're mansplaining, manspreading or that they have privilege and should acknowledge it. People don't care if there are 72 genders or not, or if Trump colluded with Russia or not. They just want economic security.
