2016 Postmortem

I don't hear anyone here saying that. What I do hear is (1) a lot of people saying the party could have done a better job over the past 30+ years of sticking up for the middle class in a lot of ways -- including by doing a better job of protecting domestic jobs, supporting unions, etc., and (2) the party needs to make that change now -- do a better job representing and protecting middle class/working class interests. There are a lot of ways the party and democrats can do that. Simply educating people that jobs aren't coming back and talking about/proposing retraining and education has not been a winning strategy thus far.

One other thing: all of those sources are wrong. Some of those jobs could come back to the US. Many of those "far cheaper labor elsewhere" job losses are not easily automated. Seems to me that getting some jobs back is a lot better than being defeatist and just saying "oh, well, they're gone and aren't coming back anyway." Here's something: why is it we never hear our leaders talking about the role economic policy could play to offset corporate attraction to automation? I think its mindset.