My point is that deluding yourself is a pointless process. A lot of people took a “see no evil, hear no evil” position. Whats the point? Know where you stand and keep fighting regardless. Being down doesn’t mean the race is over. It means you are down. No point in pretending that things are any different.
I must confess that I was sucked into that party ID thing. There just was no historical precedent for such a severe party ID drop off so quickly. The GOP has basically fallen back to 1970’s level party ID numbers from parity in just a few years. Wow.