Certainly the Dems had a chance to see it coming. Bernie Sanders, whose behavior subsequent to the convention has led me to conclude that he was never a serious candidate but a patsy set up for a fall, found himself with not just a viable campaign but a very persuasive one to elements within his party that, like elements within the Republican party, were thoroughly sick of the establishment Kabuki dance and desirous of change. What he got, $600K from the Clinton Foundation and a condescending pat on the ass, caused him to leave the party, where he now is once again an outsider looking at the wreckage within. And characteristic of Her Heinous, there was no real attempt to incorporate the passionate following he identified into her campaign. The message I saw (and I'm hardly a Sanders follower) was "all right, little people, you've had your fun, now take your places on the benches and start rowing," which attitude was precisely why they were backing Sanders in the first place. This is political ham-handedness on a high order.
Another part of the equation was that much of what used to make liberals liberal, i.e. a belief in free speech, freedom of conscience, freedom in general from a smothering and oppressive government, was no longer part of the Democrat recipe. No old-school liberal would support political correctness, hate speech laws, and rigid ideological censorship in press and the academy. The proprietors of the Democrat party now thrive on them, and on the authoritarian structure necessary to enforce them. That may be labeled progressive but it certainly isn't liberal. And a lot of liberals recognize that.
The present political dynamic is that the Republican establishment is stunned, stinging, and consigned to the corner even in a nominal victory, but don't worry, they'll be back. The Democrat establishment is defeated, reeling, but in the absence of credible opposition, resurgent. They'll be back too. Neither party is through this, Trump has bought us a little time, that's all, in which we'd better sort it out.
Recovering the older sense of “liberal” is going to be a very important thing. Trump seems to be comfortably within that older sense. The things that our modern left are calling intolerance, is the exclusion of oppressive elements, elements that end up being illiberal, not (in the old sense) liberal.
Dinesh D’Souza nailed it long ago when he wrote his book “Illiberal Education.”
Illiberalism has now come around to bite illiberals on the ass.
“The Democrat establishment is defeated, reeling, but in the absence of credible opposition, resurgent. They’ll be back too.”
The left never, ever gives up. I hope our side doesn’t get complacent...