Hillary Clinton knows better but she was arrogant as were most of the elite. All Clinton had to do was not sabotage herself.
I agree--growing up the Democrats seemed to be the party representing the hard-working blue collar citizens. At what point they decided to shift their entire platform focus to be the party of academic social engineers, climate, and identity politics, I have no idea? Most people I know have no problem whatsoever with the last two ideas but they'd rather talk about utility bills and jobs in their own communities. Even farming or urban development would be subjects which would reach more people personally. You know when you have an acquaintance who only ever wants to talk about one or two things, subjects which have no bearing whatsoever on most, and you get bored to death? The guy who wants to tell you the entire background of every single "Star Wars" character because he read the books? That. Why they decided to continually flog dead horses instead of reviving their giant wave of blue collar supporters, I don't know. (Sort of alienated and treated that group with disdain instead. ...Which is crazy.)
Well, it wouldn't be the first time the Democrats and Republicans have switched constituencies. It is odd how that happens, but not unprecedented.
For what anecdotes are worth, I grew up in a solid blue Yellow Dog Democrat family and Republicans were considered the black sheep. And for what it's worth, I come from what polite society calls white trash. My parents are the first generation in their respective families to be college graduates.
I have shaken hands with Charlie Stenholm on multiple occassions as a youngster. That's how Democrat we were.
My grandmother to this day believes that Republicans created cancer, worship Satan, and are responsible for the spread of homosexuality and just blames them for the weather and everything else. That's how Democrat this family was.
For a long time I considered myself a Democrat, and there are some figures in that party I still think are good people and there are some I think are good politicians. For instance I think Barack Obama is an all right fellow, but his political agenda is not something I would ever endorse. To mention him again, I think Charlie Stenholm was a pretty good legislator overall despite a few things he voted on I didn't completely agree with. I don't shit on them because of their label, but I definitely do not associate myself with that party either.
Nor am I a Republican. The Republicans often have some ideas I agree with, but as a party I think they're part of the problem.
In some ways I'm glad they're more in charge locally than the Democrats, but I also am not truly happy with the way they do things and I think there's much better ways.
However, as I grew up, I began to notice that my parents felt more and more frustrated with the Democrats. My father really was excited about Bill Clinton, until he began to do questionable things and ultimately my father said to me Clinton should have been impeached or at least resigned.
My parents are/were very politically moderate. In their view, the best president ever in their lifetime was Kennedy. They both believed that the amount and kind of government we had circa 1965 or so was perfect.
My Democrat grandparents were poor sharecroppers, who honestly believed themselves to be far better off than so many, they believed the welfare state was expanding too much when people in their economic strata became eligible for foodstamps and other services.
Overall both generations believed in welfare, but only for the truly helpless, and thought basically if you weren't an invalid you needed to pull your weight as best you could, and the government's role for most people was to stay out of the way and operate as inexpensively as possible. Basically in their worldview, the truly despondent and helpless, which is a small group of people to them, must live off the largesse of the majority. The more the Democrats strayed from this, the less loyal they were, but most of my grandparents died before SJW were a thing.
The Democrats first began to lose my parents on wedge issues like second amendment rights and abortion, and eventually, it has got to the point my mother now votes for Republicans, and my siblings and I are all fiercely independent. According to my mother, the modern Democrats are often insane and the ones that aren't seem to genuinely mean well but don't think about what they're doing.
I haven't seen an old school Southern-style Democrat in many a year. I think Charlie Stenholm was the last one.
So whatever they're doing, it's shifting their base considerably.