The author has evidently been in a coma since the Johnson administration.
They didn’t lose their way. They need poor, uneducated, unskilled people to keep power and they looked across the border and saw millions of potential voters and invited them in.
The Dims realized, probably during Slick’s eight years, that massive legal and illegal immigration from Third World nations was the only thing that kept them competitive in national elections. Many old video clips have been shown recently of Slick, Schumer and others decrying the negatives of illegal immigration, but no more. Immigration is the only thing that keeps them viable and they know it.
Too bad so many Republican ignore that and do the bidding of their major corporate donors.