Consider these two points:
1. the large majority of Americans live in coastal states
2. those states are trending Democrat (Virginia is a blue state now; North Carolina, Florida... swing states; Georgia trending to swing state status)
If the Democrat party transforms itself (and its ideology) into something that works for the coasts, becoming a bi-coastal party even at the expense of the Great Lakes states... it will never lose.
Well, it's complicated. The population in the "coastal states" is actually pretty diverse - it is the population in the coastal
cities that is wildly and disproportionately liberal. Virginia has tuned "blue" due to the proximity of Washington D.C. in a time of Big Government ascendency, and also to an outflow of tax refugees from neighboring Maryland into two northern counties. The rest of the state is pretty solidly "red". North Carolina has become a purplish blend due to major changes in its population - blacks moving down from the north, whites moving up from Florida, and also down from the northeast. Florida is being invaded by poor Puerto Ricans, but also by fed-up white Midwesterners. Georgia is the Nation of Metro Atlanta, otherwise surrounded by America. In sum: we're Balkanized, and there's no easy way out.
