A Right Wing Cannot Flap Alone, or, Donald Trump Screwed the Putsch

[A Black Falcon]

I agree with what you say about why Trump won, but on the Democratic Party I think you exaggerate.  Trump won because of the inflation-fueled anti-incumbent wave that's swept the whole world this year, but down-ballot things were much less bad.  In 2016, Republicans won every single US Senate seat in a state that Trump won.  This year, Democrats held four Senate seats in Trump states -- Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, and Arizona.  The resulting 53R-47D Senate will do bad things but it's a much less bad situation than it would have been without the party's reasonably decent success in down-ballot races.

In the US House things are similar, and the Dems look likely to actually pick UP a seat versus the last Congress!  The current House is 222R-213D, and right now Republicans are leading in 222 seats again, but Democrats are looking good to flip at least one of those R-leading seats, or maybe more.  If it goes to 221R as looks likely that would apparently be the smallest margin in a Presidential year ever since Alaska and Hawaii were added as states.  That's pretty good for a losing campaign.  I don't think the Democratic Party has totally failed or is a disaster, not with pretty decent House results like this considering the R+2 national environment...

Oh, in 2016 the Republicans got 241 House seats to only 194 for the Dems.  Democrats gained 6 seats that election (they'd been at 188 in '14) but still were far behind.