This George Will column says it all, in my estimation. Here’s the money graf:
Nancy Pelosi, whose understanding of America surely is conditioned by her habitat’s 85 percent Gore-Nader majority, now will referee the Democrats’ intramural rumble between those who ascribe the party’s failure to its message and those who blame only the “articulating” of it. Actually, the party’s message, frequently communicated with ruinous clarity for five decades, is condescension toward the American people.
and a few other choice bits:
In the 1950s, when liberals were “madly for Adlai,” the country liked Ike, which deepened liberals’ disdain for the majority. It was “the bland leading the bland.” Then came liberal contempt for Ronald Reagan, a contempt now reprised regarding George W. Bush.
…
Today’s Democratic Party believes, as ardent environmentalists do, in recycling — of old newspapers, old bottles, old senators (Walter Mondale, Frank Lautenberg). And old vendettas (Florida, where the state teachers union mortgaged its Tallahassee headquarters for $1.7 million and squandered almost that much attacking Gov. Jeb Bush). Most of all, the party recycles old ideas.
…
After Britain’s Labor Party was demolished by Margaret Thatcher in the 1983 general election, an undaunted Laborite vowed, “No compromise with the electorate.” That can be the rallying cry of Pelosi Democrats.
Given the reaction of Democrats to the election results, you have to wonder if they actually believe in democracy at all. There’s very little evidence that they do, except in California.