This is my personal theory of all this: this presidential race was unwinnable for us,

…. and it became unwinnable sometime in 2023.

With that I'll summarize the last eight-ish years:
- 2015-16: electorate is disengaged and oblivious. Democrats are at peak Neo Lib, ineffective and oblivious
- 2016 election: most of us realize that "there is something very wrong in America." Many diner interviews uncover some causes: information bubbles and social media. Extremist and white nationalist groups proliferating on the Internet. Rural/urban divide. "Economic anxiety" and alienation.
- 2017-20: Dems start getting good at organizing and ground game. Elected Dems get their act together, oppose Trump, and flip Congress and eventually WH
- 2021-22: dems have a trifecta and tried to ram as much good legislation through as possible, and get pretty good at coalition building. Overperform midterms but lose house
- 2023-24: can't expect to get anything done without the house. But mostly trying to contain crises. War in Gaza. Perception of Biden as losing a step. Inflation.
But at this point, we haven't addressed any of the root causes we unearthed in 2016. Tbf, we didn't really have the capacity to in the earlier years. But maybe 2023 was the time to try, and we didn't. Instead, they got worse. We got a quick burst of energy with Harris and did a lot of good work in the past hundred days, but it was way too late.

Also the anti-incumbency bias.