We don't have all the data in yet to know exactly why the Dems were demolished well beyond even the GOP's best hopes. But we can make some preliminary judgments. IMO, the biggest reason overall is that Democratic candidates played not to lose, went fetal, following their usual pattern, helped by Obama's own example. The GOP played to win, went for the jugular, and the American people like candidates who go for the jugular. The Dems ran from their reeling president, ran from their own party history, and tried their best to sound like Republicans with a smiley face. The American people don't like weak imitations. They chose the real thing.
Three key moments or decisions stick out of me. The first, seeing Joe Manchin on TV early in the day calling out Obama's supposed anti-coal policies (which don't exist. Natural gas is killing coal. Not the EPA) -- and he's a Democrat. First of all, Obama has governed as a conservative on all but a few social issues -- which is itself another cause of this tsumani. His EPA is handcuffed by trade secrets laws and an administration afraid to upset business interests. There is no war on coal, no war on fossil fuels, no war on business. Obama, in reality, ranks as one of the most business-friendly presidents we've ever had. But the Republicans have quite successfully painted our weak-willed, very conservative president as a wild-eyed, dictatorial leftist, and many Dems in office echo this frame. Manchin did on election day and prior to it.
Second: Grimes in Kentucky. When are the Dems ever going to learn? It doesn't work to run from your own party. It never works. Refusing to say you even voted for the president of your own party just tells voters you can't be trusted and that you're embarrassed to be in the party you've chosen. And they rightfully say, if you're embarrassed about it, why run as a Dem? And why should I vote for you? Americans are going to choose even lunatics who stand by their parties over thoughtful, nice people who cower in the corner when confronted about their choices.
Third: Obama chose not to ruffle any feathers before the election and held back on his executive decisions regarding immigration. A fatal/fetal decision. Obama, time and time again, has chosen the path of attempted reconciliation with his enemies, even though there is no hope for this, ever, and it keeps kicking the Dems in the teeth. When are the Dems going to learn that in our political climate, the party that obsesses about "looking reasonable" is going to lose out to the one that goes for the jugular. People are pissed off. They don't want Miss Manners in charge. They want Patton.
More after the fold . . .
Of course, it makes a big difference regarding the source of that reasonableness. If it's just the usual sausage making which ends up being a compromise between the center-right and the far right, people aren't going to give you brownie points for even trying. If, however, the Dems go for broke, push forward a truly ground-breaking idea that clearly benefits the vast majority of Americans (Medicare for All, for instance) -- profits be damned -- then that's the kind of "reasonableness" people can get behind. But they don't. They've lost sight of actual policy-making to benefit the masses of Americans and seem obsessed with appearing reasonable -- not through their willingness to craft excellent legislation, but through their willingness to cave into Republican demands and work with them.
The GOP, on the other way, isn't ever "reasonable," and they never craft responsible, beneficial legislation. But they don't cave. They don't go fetal. So, despite their crap ideas, they shellacked the Dems. Again, because people would rather vote for politicians who believe in themselves and their party more than they believe in the power of compromise for compromise's sake.
As for the lesson learned here? We all know what it will be, now don't we? The Dems will take this Sherman-thunders-through-Georgia kind of loss to move even further to the right, while they seek compromise even more, thus handing 2016 to the GOP.
Europe is looking better and better all the time.