"Just Was Not Credible Anymore"

"In 1992, Bill Clinton was the leader of a young, insurgent, policy-oriented branch of his party challenging the 'paleoliberals' who were still living in a social democratic wayback machine and the identity politicians who had forgotten how to construct a broadly appealing message. In 2016, Hillary Clinton was the representative of older forces in her party; she left younger voters cold in the primaries—running against a septuagenarian social democrat, no less—and lukewarm in the general election. Her main emotional appeal revolved around her identity as a woman.

"In 1992, Bill Clinton was very much on the offensive. In 2016, his wife was largely on the defensive from the beginning to the end of the whole campaign."

Ed Kilgore at New York says goodbye to "the Clinton Era of Democratic Politics." (As does Frank Bruni in The New York Times.)

And Eric Levitz argues that "the only people in the Democratic Party with a coherent narrative of how to move forward—and a national base of support—are Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren."