There’s an old saying that, when you point your finger at someone else, your thumb is pointing back at you. In a perverse way, it characterizes the Democratic search for scapegoats following losses to Republican presidential candidates.

“It’s the crazy progressives who tanked Democratic prospects, with their looney woke policies.” Or, “No, it’s the pandering to conservatives which makes Democrats look corrupt to working-class voters.” If you suspect that both are partly true, you may be guilty of rational analysis.

Democrats have screwed up badly on a range of “cultural” issues, implementing unpopular policies like lax enforcement of America’s borders. On the other hand, palling around with Liz Cheney did not secure the coveted 270 EVs for the Donkey Party leader.

I may be wallowing in the false equivalency fever swamp here. But really, there is rarely a one-dimensional explanation for big political changes.

One factor that gets overlooked in pundit analysis is that people expect more from Democrats, and they don’t expect much from Republicans. It’s a lot easier for Democrats to disappoint voters, than it is for Republicans to do likewise. The bar is a lot lower for Republicans. A great many of their voters expect them to do nothing, and they almost always meet these low expectations.

Nearly all of the significant social and economic reforms passed during the last century were passed and signed into law by Democrats, frequently over the opposition of Republicans. If you think this is an exaggeration, quick, name a popular legislative reform that was passed by Republicans over the opposition of Democrats. That’s why you see memes like the one below, and there are zero memes depicting ‘Great Republican Contributions to the Lives of America’s Working People.’

Yes, Democrats have recently screwed up this legacy with excessive wokism. Think of the recent presidential election as a painful and costly course correction. But it’s more likely that Democrats will learn the lesson and recalibrate than it is that Republicans will become the enduring party of American workers and their families.