It would be very difficult to find someone less progressive or left than Michael Brendan Doherty. But he's correct.
The Democrats pointedly refused to run a candidate with any message whatsoever, beyond 'vote for us or you're racist/if you're financially comfortable you'll be able to ignore politics and enjoy brunch again guilt-free'.
They deliberately campaign entirely in the realm of the culture war, because just like the Republicans their function is to provide a service to the people who pay them for it by keeping America's political economy more or less intact, channelling the energy of their base into something harmless.
There is no great mystery why the Democrats struggle to win voters outside their professional middle-class base (and it is looking like, as I expected, their presumed monopoly on ethnic minority voters will continue to erode, even after four years of 'fascism'). The deplorables understand perfectly well that most Democrats regard them with utter contempt - just look through this thread! - and, in the deliberate absence of any clear policy offers that will meaningfully improve their material conditions, they will side with the team that doesn't regard them as racist barbarians.
American elections are rapidly becoming a referendum on whether or not one has a college degree, and if those are the stakes the Democrats will lose, deservedly, every single time. We can all soothe ourselves that we're the enlightened ones for seeing through Trump (as though half the people who vote for him don't know perfectly well who he is either), but on the other hand it takes a good deal of education not to be able to see products like Buttigieg, O'Rourke or Kamala Harris for what they obviously are. It's the Democrat base, more than the Republican, which still can't admit that the wrestling is staged.
Oh well, I suppose even that's probably too 'intellectual'.
And the Democrats might eke this out, so we can all console ourselves with another four years of 'they're all just credulous automatons who've been brainwashed by the tough talking bad man on television, or the Russkies'.
