Dems, do you want to succeed?

Democrats and their sympathetic allies like me are anxious to end not just Don Trumpone's corrupt and corrosive presidency, but the reactionary and toxic hold of Republicans at the national (and often, the state) level.

Now, as a climate-change worrier (though I'm transitioning to resignation), I'm first and foremost concerned with mitigating our nation's catastrophically bad impact on our air, water, and soil. However, in terms of practical politics, I recognize a giant blind spot in Democratic policy discussions that is of far greater moment than climate change.

How will Democrats address the economic left-behinds?

I know, this is not exactly a new topic, and to some degree it has been part of many 2020 Democratic presidential candidates' talking points. However, it hasn't been central to anyone's, not even Elizabeth Warren's.

The reason we're talking a little more, and even contemplating doing a little more, about climate change is that Gov. Jay Inslee made that the singular focus of his campaign. Inslee, of course, ended his presidential bid after failing to attract enough support to participate in recent debates. However, his campaign's message lives on, and thank goodness for that.

Unlike climate change, which has a too-esoteric, too-distant relationship to everyday life for most people to care (though their children and grandchildren do and will vilify us for being so damned shortsighted and stupid as they suffer the consequences of our inaction), economic dislocation is an issue everyone cares about. Livelihoods being eliminated by technological and political changes hit as close to home as you can get.

Here's one canary in this coal mine, which just happens to be about coal mines in Wyoming.

A decade ago, about half of U.S. electricity came from coal-fired power. Now it’s below 30%, a shift that heavy equipment operator Rory Wallet saw as utilities became less willing to lock in multiyear contracts for Belle Ayr mine’s coal.

“The market’s changed,” Wallet said. “The bankruptcies all tie into that.”

The market's changed. Don Trumpone tapped into a lot of voters' anxiety that "the market's changed" when he promised to resurrect coal's role in the national economy. I doubt many in coal country believed he could turn back the clock that far — but at least he told them he gave a damn and he was willing to go to bat for them, however futilely.

I assume Hillary Clinton was concerned about those out-of-work coal miners, too, but she didn't send much of a message on that score.

Wallet, 40, followed his father, an equipment mechanic, into the Belle Ayr mine in 2008. He said the recent mine closures and loss of his $80,000-a-year job took him by surprise.

He has four children, ages 11 to 16, and his wife’s job at the Ruby Tuesday’s restaurant in Gillette is their main income while they await news about the mines.

Wallet didn't do anything wrong. He took a high-paying job that allowed him to support a growing family. Through no fault of his own, that job disappeared. A similar one might come along but there's no guarantee, and odds are he wouldn't be the only one competing for it if it did.

That story is one that both parties have been happy to ignore for decades, since at least the 1970s. The reckoning for Democrats came in 2016 when the unthinkably awful Don Trumpone squeaked into office by talking to the nearly economically dispossessed. (As many have observed, those already dispossessed tended to favor Democrats; Trump picked up those who were desperate not to fall off the economic ladder.)

What he told those fearful of losing everything was the sheerest bullshit and he is emotionally and intellectually incapable of actually helping them, but did anyone on the Democratic side compete with him?

Well yes, Bernie Sanders did. However, Democrats didn't nominate him.

I'm not a Sanders fan but his message that the system is rotten and needs major overhauling, not little tweaks, resonates. The original sin of our headlong embrace of globalization half a century ago has not yet been addressed: no politician cared what happened to the ones who lost their jobs.

Democratic Party, if you want to be relevant outside cities and tech hubs, you can't give the same tired answers to the same tired question, "What happens if I lose my job?" You must tackle the much scarier question, What do I do if my livelihood disappears? — and in your answer(s) you have to bring the same energy, focus, and depth of thought that Jay Inslee brought to his climate-change plans.