Opinion | The Democrats weren't stupid or crazy -- just wrong

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

48% : The new administration gave every indication of believing that the politics of transgender rights was bound to follow the same trajectory that same-sex marriage had.
46% : A ban on fracking, taxpayer-funded gender transitions for prisoners and detained undocumented immigrants, a prohibition on private health insurance: She endorsed all of these ideas in 2019 as she sought the Democratic presidential nomination.
33% : At the same time, and not coincidentally, the public was rapidly turning leftward, especially on social issues -- same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization -- that had previously harmed Democrats.
32% : But the fact that Trump had lost the popular vote reduced Democrats' interest in drastic change.
22% : The path of least resistance will be to hope that Trump and the Republicans make themselves sufficiently unpopular to save Democrats the trouble of making painful changes.
20% : Then again, counting on Republicans to make themselves unelectable is part of how the Democrats led themselves to two defeats by Trump in the first place.
19% : Other Democrats complained that Trump was in the running only because the media had not used the word "fascist" enough.
18% : If Obama's election victories had given Democrats new confidence in progressive politics, their defeat by Trump in 2016 was radicalizing -- especially on issues related to race and sex.
14% : Medicare-for-all took multiple hits: Pete Buttigieg dropped his support for it, Warren dodged questions about raising taxes to pay for it, and Harris kept changing her position and tripping over it.

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