WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Progressive Crisis: Why Can’t Democrats Connect With The Voters? Especially when they so clearly know more than the voters about, well, everything . . . .

Mead: “The ‘transformational President’ failed to bring about the Great Realignment Democrats thought they saw. Healthcare was a poisoned chalice; the debt ceiling bill was a disaster. The electorate keeps trending right and the Democratic establishment, more than thirty years after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, is no closer to solving the problem of the New Right than it was when Jimmy Carter turned the White House over to the Gipper. . . . The problem goes even deeper than hostility toward perceived featherbedding and life tenure for government workers. The professionals and administrators who make up the progressive state are seen as a hostile power with an agenda of their own that they seek to impose on the nation. This perception, also, is rooted in truth.”