I concur with you. My wife has her PhD in Ontology and she keeps saying that by the way a lot of left/liberal newscasters laugh (especially Rachel "Tokyo Rose" Maddow) at some of they're own self made statements, they're just attempting to reassure themselves that they're confident that the Dem party will prevail in the election. That's a subliminal message that they're scared of the truth. But nothing new there.
Another problem is that the Democratic Party’s leader pool has dried up. I believe they’d have gladly thrown Hillary under the bus this cycle if they could’ve ran a younger, fresher face with ideals similar to Obama… but there simply isn’t anybody else as far as I know. The next 4-8 years will give the Dems time to find that, as well as retool a coherent message to run on.
The GOP would’ve also faced this problem in the coming years. Rubio (as mediocre as he is) was supposed to be ‘the future’, but that’s dicey now as he’s apparently quit politics and his presidential bid failed given the emergence of Trump. The upside is that Trump’s rise will breathe new ideological vitality into the GOP which’ll draw new & interesting talent to the party.