No, it wasn't inflation or gas prices of cardigan sweaters.
It was us.
Word to the wise from an older guy (GF says I can't say "old" because I haven't earned it yet): coalitions are messy business. It's easy to be united in opposition, especially when those in power are as egregious as a Nixon or a Junior--or their obvious continuances like Ford or McCan't.
But once the rest of the country catches up with what you've been saying and joins you in opposition, actually goes to the polls, pulls the "D" lever and puts your party in power, then you're in trouble.
Because the coalition required to maintain a Democratic majority is broad and diverse, stretching from NoCal econauts across a fruited plain of ag subsidy collectors to a city of gleaming towers filled with derivatives traders. Not to mention all the conservadems, single-issuists and actual socialists you find along the road.
A bigger problem is the inordinate amount of time we spend out of power, watching our goals and grails slip farther and farther out of reach. These interregna are bad enough in themselves (for the country, as well as our party, imo), but they also make us ever more impatient when we actually do win the driver's seat. We can't wait to get going and reverse some of the horrors that our opponents have loosed upon the land.
And that's where the friction starts. Some folks want to see X tackled immediately, if not sooner. Others have been waiting for a chance to redress Y. It quickly becomes clear that we are a party of competing priorities, coupled with style differences that were easily overlooked when we all stood outside the castle with our torches and pitchforks.
(I'll leave aside for now the uncomfortable truth that we also have an opposition of our own now, with power in the marble halls and friends who buy ink by the barrel.)
After years of seeing the things we know are most important battered, mocked or ignored by our foes, to see them battered, mocked or ignored by our supposed friends, our allies, our standard-bearers is too much. We grumble. We groan. We object. Pretty soon we're shouting.
And, before long, that shout is, "I'm done with the Democrats!"
Then our opponents know they've won, before a single vote is cast. Their audience is concerned about issues, too, but willing to be led by platitudes like "freedom" and "get government off my back," ignoring the intricate issues that actually make up governance.
And, for reasons I've never understood, their audience will stay with them in power, long after it has become obvious that the policies being promoted have nothing to do with freedom or less government. I don't know how they do it, but they spend a lot less time than we listening to the shouts of the many disparate factions that make up a coalition.
That's why they're good at keeping power, even though they don't use it well.
I am not in love with my party. My president infuriates me. My senator? Jeez, let's talk about something else.
The issues I believe vital to our country's survival and general contentment are left daily on committee room floors, snipped from legislation by gilded scissors. My dreamt America will never be brought to life by the Democratic Party.
But I know my nightmare America comes to pass every time Republicans get power.
Sorry for the rather disjointed thoughts. I'm something of a concern troll today. Concerned about us.