It is now undeniable that the Democratic party is shattered and powerless: all branches of the federal government, as well as most state governments, have overwhelming Republican majorities and soon the US Supreme Court will be irreparably reactionary for generations to come.

Sub-par primary and secondary education, combined with powerful reactionary propaganda campaigns, are the two major factors that enabled the crushing defeat of all that is good and fair in the United States.
Anti-progressive propaganda has been mentioned here and here before, and i’ll probably come back to it soon. However, we must note that the disastrous state of public education, due to the Reagan-inspired Republican agenda of increasingly deep budget cuts, has produced a generation of under-educated people who turn to the easy, sensationalistic answers offered by the extreme right (remember Trump’s comment: ‘we love the poorly educated‘).

So, let’s set the record straight: what does it mean to be a Democrat, and what does the Democratic Party stand for?

Democratic presidents won both World Wars (W. Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt), got America out of the two worst economic disasters of the 20th and 21st Centuries (F.D.R. and B. Obama), B. Clinton presided over the largest growth in the US economy since F.D.R, and Lyndon B. Johnson ushered in a new age of Civil Rights.

Today’s Democratic Party is largely founded on the ideals and model set by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson.
That is to say, the Democratic Party prioritizes the needs of the working class (including middle class and skilled professionals).
Economically, by supporting organized labor, so that workers get the best possible deal when dealing with management; by supporting efforts to impose living wages; by placing an emphasis on growth, innovation, development, rather than unequal distribution of revenues in large corporations.
Socially, by ensuring that all US Citizens get the same opportunities, respect, and rights. This means focusing on equal educational opportunities, fair housing, and fair treatment under the law.
Democrats also believe that the government needs to regulate markets to ensure their fairness and stability; the same goes with public utilities such as power, water, and healthcare.

The problem is that the Democratic Party is simply terrible at communicating its agenda.

It is completely aberrant that the working class would trust Republicans to improve their chances in today’s and tomorrow’s economies when Republicans have so consistently devastated the rights of the working class!

Economically, Republicans have sought to annihilate organized labor; increase the share of profits that go to CEOs and shareholders at the expense of wages, growth, investment, and research.
The central Republican idea that tax cuts for the rich bring jobs is a proven fallacy! Tax cuts for the rich do the opposite: they increase hoarding of wealth, they reduce investment, they reduce growth, they reduce research (but don’t just take my word for it).
Also central to Republican dogma is the fallacious notion of corporate efficiency. 
Socially, Republicans have been crippling the power and influence of the Federal Government in order to roll back Civil Rights laws and reinstate racial, sexual, and social discrimination practices. This is done to guarantee the availability of cheap labor: as long as you keep a large enough amount of people in poverty, you can get them do do just about any job for dramatically unfair wages, and in dramatically unfair conditions!

On that note, how can anyone in the working class believe, for example, that Mr Trump would do anything for them?!
His track record, which i’ve examined before, demonstrates that he will only ever seek to enrich himself, and do so at the expense of the working class in particular, and all others in general. But i digress…

Finally, Republicans have been, since the Reagan era, on a deregulation bender that has provoked 3 massive recessions, and wild economic instability. Thanks to Republican efforts at deregulation, healthcare, electricity, water, power have reached unprecedented dizzying high costs. The stock market has been given over to speculators, which prompted large corporations to cease to invest, to grow, to do research, opting instead for the short-term optics of massive cuts.

It is simply a fact that Republicans have always been, and will always be, looking out for the interests of the owners of the means of production.
It is also a fact that only the Democratic Party has consistently sought to improve the quality of life of the working, middle class, and skilled professionals.
Finally, it is an absolute fact that the agenda of the Republicans is fundamentally and ‘big league’ opposed to the needs of the working or middle class.