When it comes to something like an election, much of the outcome is determined by events and forces that are beyond a candidate’s or party’s control. That said, professional Democrats do have agency and desperately need to make changes in the things they do control (boldface mine):

The party lacks any sort of cohesive information architecture or strategy and leaders of the party holding elected office are lackadaisical about communicating with the public – and when they do bother to speak out, the language and methods are archaic most of the time. Even if the media and social environment were perfect, the party would have problems communicating in this mess, so it’s even worse since the environment is a toxic garbage dump.

When they’re not communicating competently the party is also governing and legislating incompetently. Democrats may be America’s liberal party, but they are beholden to a conservative approach. The party is disinterested in proposing legislation designed to advance its ideological goals, preferring instead to only back legislation that has a realistic chance to pass, rather than backing bills designed to fail which would elicit friction with the other side – activating support from voters. At the same time, the party legislates as if bipartisanship is the end goal, rather than providing policies and services to help people. And then it stinks at communicating the benefits of those policies to people.

This was the party that Biden then Harris led, and it had these same problems – or some variation of them – under Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, as well as the eras when it was out of the White House and in the minority.

Acknowledging these problems and working to fix them is not undermining the party. America is (for now at least) a two-party country and it needs a competent Democratic Party to hold off the menace within the Republican Party.

It’s impossible to control everything, but professional Democrats could end the bad behavior Willis identifies–if they so chose. So far, they haven’t.

Then again, I’m old enough to remember when rank-and-file Democrats had to fight our own party to get them to protect Social Security which is the signature safety net program of the Democratic Party. It gets tiresome after a while.

At some point, even diehards are going to start wondering if their money and time (voting is pretty easy in many, not all, places) are better spent on something other than the same old Democrats.