Admittedly, Democratic politicians and political operatives almost uniformly fell out of the stupid tree and banged their heads on every damn branch on the way down, but one might think that even for these hapless fools enlightened naked self-interest would kick in at some point (boldface mine):

Mike Podhorzer crunched the numbers and found there’s one factor that, with eerie consistency, explains the way elections have swung for the past decade. Podhorzer, the political director of the AFL-CIO, is one of the top electoral strategists on the left. The crucial factor, he found, is Democrats’ vote share among voters making less than $50,000.

Republicans consistently win voters making $50,000 or more, approximately the U.S. median income. The margin doesn’t vary too much: In 2012, Mitt Romney got 53 percent of this group’s vote; in 2010, Republican House candidates got 55 percent. And Democrats consistently win voters making less than the median—but the margin varies widely. In fact, whether Democrats win these voters by a 10-point or a 20-point margin tells you who won every national election for the past decade….

“It doesn’t often get reported, but the key indicator that has been decisive for the last several elections is how people making below the median income vote,” Podhorzer said this week. Black or white, Asian or Hispanic, male or female, young or old, it’s that simple. To reach these voters, Podhorzer believes, candidates need to focus on the economic issues of the working class. “Economic populism decides who wins elections in America,” he said.

Have Democrats reached these voters? What the hell do you think happened? Of course not:

…I asked Pew to crunch the numbers for me. The result: 51 percent of voters making less than $50,000 plan to vote for Democrats, while 40 percent plan to vote Republican. (The rest are undecided, and the GOP wins the more-than-$50,000 vote 49-44.) That’s exactly the same 11-point margin that has meant Democratic doom in every election since 2004.

Yes, the Republicans have redefined the meaning of obstructionism. But the Democrats never had a plan, until very recently to point that out. There was no long game to force them to vote against popular bills over and over–and then hammer them on it. It’s not Green Lanternism to lay the cultural and intellectual groundwork for the case that the Republicans are in the damn way on everything. And now, the crazy party could take over. Awesome.