The best way I have heard so far on how to make sense of the response to the big wave of anger and discontent.
Ben Jealous just said on the Ed show:
"... we are in a time when prosperity is going down while diversity is going up and in those times you have two choices. You can do what the Tea Party does; try to push down on diversity. They really can never win that battle, or you can push up on prosperity, and that’s what we are focused on. We are focused on job creation."
That is essentially the difference between the two choices avialable to the voters in November.
It's unfortunate that the Democratic Party was not able to become the de facto standard bearer for the second choice already, but the revolt of the Team Party is mostly against the first choice embodied by this administration’s mere existence, even if they didn't forcefully and actively push a diversity agenda.
The left too is in a state of revolt, but ours is mostly a response to the lack of activism and focus to push for prosperity, perhaps even a disappointment by the tokenism when it came to diversity.
After the Bush bailouts the reality or at least the perception has been that even the new people in power have been more concerned about the prosperity for the powerful than about making sure it reaches the middle class.
The Tea Party's push against diversity has fewer powerful enemies than any push for prosperity and so the relevant question for November is:
Can the Democrats get the steam off the Tea Party wave by making a credible case that they have gotten the message and can be trusted to focus on prosperity after the election?