If anything has become crystal-clear this year through all the interminable, pointless, never-ending Democratic Free-a-Thons (one can hardly call them "debates"), it's this:

The Democrats are totally and absolutely a party focused solely on identity politics and a party not at all concerned with the greater, general good of the country.  Their electoral strategy is based on identifying specific groups of voters to whom they can assign victimhood status and then promise a taxpayer-funded government program to alleviate their suffering and correct the wrongs perpetrated against them.

Implicit in the Democrats' argument is the common theme that these so-called transgressions are the result of biased, intentional wrongdoing by white conservative Republicans, whose prejudices, shortsightedness, and mean-spirited nature are aimed at those groups, with the intention of maintaining (or regaining, in some instances) political control of the country by a white heterosexual male cohort of European decent.

The proof is in the crop of Democratic presidential contenders, every one of whom neatly escapes fitting into the verboten category.  There are a few conveniently excused exceptions: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, both of whom are precisely white heterosexual males of European decent.

But we can explain that away.  Really, we can.  In Biden's case, he was vice president to the country's first black president, so his minority bona fides are supposedly secure in the minds of the liberal mainstream media, and he won't be called out on it.

In Bernie Sanders's case, his 2016 campaign was so impressively progressive — pushing, as it did, the first really nationally recognized effort by a high-profile presidential candidate to introduce a single-payer European-styled health care system to America — that the liberal establishment is willing to overlook his white straightness because he has paid his admission at the socialist ticket window.  So like Biden, Bernie is excused.  Besides, there is an undercurrent of thought that neither Biden nor Sanders will actually win the Democratic nomination, so the Democratic Party power structure and the liberal media are both "safe" in letting them have their fun.  Neither poses any real danger.

The rest of them — Booker, Harris, Klobuchar, Buttigieg, Gabbard, Warren, Yang, and Patrick (do we really have to count him?) — all qualify under the non-white/non-male/non-heterosexual rule.  Steyer is an outlier, a white heterosexual billionaire, who despite being a rabid, frothing climate change zealot will gain no traction because his personal characteristics are "incorrect."  With Mike Bloomberg now entering the Democratic fray, he'll be summarily dismissed as well for committing the same crimes as Steyer — being a rich, white, straight male.

Having covered the requirements regarding the ethnicity/sexual orientation/sex of their candidates, the Democrats are free to focus on the electoral strategy that suits them best: identify victim groups and craft taxpayer-funded programs to relieve their victimhood.  There is never a lack of victims for Democrats to rescue.  The one thing all the victims have in common is that their problems are never caused by their own actions, bad luck, or natural circumstances; according to Democrats, their problems are always caused by Republicans.

Democratic solutions: abortion on demand (at any time, for any reason); affirmative action/race-based hiring quotas/selective admission; mandated ESL programs/multi-language translations always available/the refusal to adopt English as the country's official language; free social benefits for illegal aliens and the establishment of the DACA program; government-mandated unisex bathrooms; the willingness to weaken military readiness by the expansion of front-line combat roles to groups previously unqualified; all manner of government college loans; onerous, punitive government environmental regulations and requirements; wildly fantastical promises of free government-provided health care, free college tuition, guaranteed affordable housing, a guaranteed "livable" minimum wage (even guaranteed income, whether you work or not!), etc.

These are just some examples (there are a lot more) of Democratic-favored initiatives designed to curry electoral favor with specific special-interest voting blocs.  The Democrats' hope is that if enough of these blocs buy into these fraudulently pandering overtures, it will add up to a winning voting majority.

None of the Democratic contenders ever mentions (nor is ever asked by any liberal debate moderator or reporter) what their plans and stances are regarding foreign policy, international trade, energy production (except, perhaps, as it relates to the environment), military readiness, reducing and eliminating useless job-stifling business regulations, unemployment, or the stock market.  These are "big" issues that affect the entire country and all its inhabitants.  As these major issues improve, everyone's life gets better.  These are big-picture issues, things a president can and should directly influence.

Instead, the Democrats are more concerned that their candidates confirm their membership in an approved victimhood group by checking the correct status box on some capricious, unfounded demographic qualifications test.  The idea of focusing on bigger national issues that apply across the arbitrary boundaries of race, sex, age, and educational level, of following more of a "rising tide lifts all boats" approach in their electoral strategy, doesn't even occur to them.  In fact, that is precisely and intentionally avoided.

Instead, the Democrats are completely focused on "small" issues as those relate to the perceived victim status of targeted potential voting groups.  Here would be a fascinating question to ask at the next Democratic debate that would illuminate their collective inward-looking smallness with crystal clarity:

As we all know, military spending is a major portion of the federal budget.  As president, if presented with the option of expanding our strategic bomber fleet by adding approximately 25 more B-21 Raiders or adding another Ford-class carrier — the cost would be about the same for either — which would you favor and, most importantly, why?

Such a question would add all the Democrats onstage to another victim group: the terminally ignorant.  Unfortunately for them, there is no taxpayer-funded government program to cure that.