The political edifice that was the top-down command structure of the Democratic Party has finally been washed away, but the Democrats "appear to be doubling down on being wrong," writes Patrick Howley at the American Spectator.

In the wake of the historic voter rejection of Democrats at both the federal and the state levels, one might reasonably expect a degree of self-reflection among the party faithful.  Yet Congressional Democrats who seek to fill the leadership void seem to have learned little from defeat.

Citing "Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison's surprising announcement that he will run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC)," Mr. Howley writes:

Ellison is one of the most left-wing members of the House, and his ascendance signals the continuance of a damaging trend in Democratic politics. The exclusionary progressivism of Hillary Clinton's campaign doomed it to failure. The campaign even ignored husband Bill's advice to target white working-class voters, citing a demographic shift in the party that senior progressives thought would be enough to justify cutting blue-collar Midwesterners out of their coalition altogether.

... The structural damage to the Democratic machine has clearly been done, and the party seems incapable of realizing its own political mistakes.

While the Democrats have handed Republicans a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change directions, Mr. Howley cautions that the vaunted demographic shift is "definitely real and will keep the Democrats in long-term contention."

National Review's Rich Lowry, commenting on President Obama's incessant "harping on the 'right side of history,'" also notes the Democrat reliance on new demographics:

The president basically thinks anyone who gets in his way is transgressing the larger forces of history with a capital "H."

... Obama has returned to this phrase and argument obsessively. It is deeply embedded in his, and the larger progressive, mind – and indirectly contributed to the Left's catastrophic defeat on November 8.

... It assumes that certain classes of people are retrograde. Why would Democrats bother to try to appeal to working-class white voters if they are stamped with the disapproval of History?

... And, if History is thought to have an ascendant electoral coalition (and a hell of a data operation), it creates an unjustified sense of political inevitability. This is what the theorists of the "emerging Democratic majority," and most pundits on the left, bought into.

Lowry concludes by observing that Republican repeal of a right-side-of-history program like Obamacare "will constitute the most significant rollback of the welfare state ever," and that:

... [n]ow, a president who so confidently associated himself and his cause with the tide of the future has presided over a political wipeout that will send much of his legacy into the dustbin.

The American Spectator's Howley, however, cautions again that the Obama legacy is not yet in the dustbin (emphasis in original):

Feckless Republican leadership helped to create the disenchantment that led to Trump's populist win in the primaries. Feckless Republican leadership at a time like this – when so much opportunity exists for GOP exploitation – will only cause the party of Lincoln to miss yet another YUGE opportunity for gain.

The spectacle of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) herding their colleagues to the progressive left belies the fact that the Democrats will not go away quietly.

The title of a book published in 2010, The High Tide of American Conservatism: Davis, Coolidge, and the 1924 Election, is a reminder that every Coolidge is followed by a Roosevelt, and every Reagan by an Obama. 

Democrats in disarray are a gift to the Republicans' nascent high tide, but Lowry's "unjustified sense of political inevitability" works both ways. 

Be wary of Democrats bearing gifts.