I read an article in the Times today that over the last two years the Democratic Party has almost stopped running for statehouse or local offices in many red states or even states that once had major democratic presence. The example they used was Missouri which just a decade ago had a Democratic governor, senator and several representatives.

The Democrats have to bear some responsibility for our situation. The more the left has become a loud voice in the Democratic Party, the more the rural voters - who the left historically holds in contempt and will on this blog argue that they have too much power - will end up in the embrace of the GOP. To the left, that suits them fine: they want a party that is more like them and doesn't include people they consider inferior. Every time Daily Kos calls out Red states as being lost causes, it's clear they don't want the Democratic Party to sully its hands with those people. But those people have the same right to vote as everyone else. The left would rather form new states then dare to dirty its hands campaigning in states that already exist. They are incapable of comprehending that the policies they follow might not play with anyone who isn't them. As far as their concerned states like Kansas and Wyoming isn't that they have too much power, it's that they have ANY power. And the Democrats increased embrace of them during the Trump era has done nothing to improve the Party's short or long term prospects. A political party has to have a big tent. The fact that the Democrats are seeding so much ground to the Republicans in red states shows a flawed picture that is only magnified by leftists who really believe that the 2500 sections Trump won in 2020 don't count the same way as the 500 Biden won. "Nobody' lives in Trumps; 'everyone' lives in Biden. That is an argument a Salon writer made with a straight face when David Brooks' pointed out that uncomfortable fact earlier this year. Similarly the leading progressive newsletter now apparently thinks that the media was not only wrong to give so much coverage to Hilary referring to Trump voters as a basket of deplorables but that the only mistake she made was apologizing for it.

The reality of Trumpsim is a threat. But it wouldn't have the power it did were it not for the Democrats increasing decision to abandon a 50 state strategy that won them both houses of Congress and a landslide election for Obama by 2008. The Democratic Party has abandoned almost all its resources in red states. Did they truly think that those people weren't going to vote any more or that they weren't going to vote for anyone who even pretended to listen to them? That has to be considered not only in this elections but the ones to follow.