First came the complaints that it was Tim Walz’s fault. The Minnesota governor and self-described knucklehead wasn’t the folksy small-town coach that Team Harris made him out to be. In addition to making numerous gaffes on the campaign trail, he got his clock cleaned in his debate with JD Vance.

We should’ve gone with Josh Shapiro, the Monday morning quarterbacks muttered. And they were right.

But Walz wasn’t the only problem. Not even close. Kamala Harris herself was a rotten candidate. Her inability to hit that softball served up by Sunny Hostin on “The View” was inexcusable. “What, if anything, would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?” Hostin inarticulately asked. To which Harris responded lamely, “There is not a thing that comes to mind … and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact, the work that we have done.”

Thus, not only did she choke, but she went one better by shackling herself to the Bad Ship Biden. Fortunately for Harris, though, she’s not a white male like Walz, so folks on the Left have been a bit more reluctant to cast blame her way. Except for former Clinton strategist James Carville. He wasn’t reluctant in the least. As he put it:

I think if this campaign is reducible to one moment, we are in a 65% wrong-track country. The country wants something different. And she’s asked, as is so often the case, in a friendly audience, on “The View,” “How would you be different than Biden?” That’s the one question that you exist to answer, all right? That is it. That’s the money question. That’s the one you want. That’s the one that everybody wants to know the answer to. And you freeze.“

Harris’s inadequacies aside, it didn’t help the Democrats that Barack Obama jumped the shark before their very eyes. As Victor Davis Hanson writes, "Obama again harped that constituents did not know what was good for them. And then, the disappointed former community organizer suddenly disappeared — pondering to which of his own four mansions his private jet would fly him home to commiserate.” Ouch.

But to focus on these awful candidates and washed-up standard-bearers is to ignore the other matter that’s roiling many Democrats — namely, their repulsive policies and their divisive politics.

“It’s not just Kamala,” said socialist octogenarian Senator Bernie Sanders. “It’s a Democratic Party which increasingly has become a party of identity politics, rather than understanding that the vast majority of people in this country are working class. This trend of workers leaving the Democratic Party started with whites, and it has accelerated to Latinos and Blacks.”

When Bernie Sanders sounds like the voice of reason, like the adult in the room, you know your party’s in trouble.

“Democrats,” said Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton, “spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

Moulton, a normally mild-mannered Marine veteran, is obviously onto something here, but some of his congressional colleagues simply don’t get it. Take Seattle-based leftist Pramila Jayapal, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus and calls herself “the proud mom of a daughter who happens to be trans.” Said Jayapal: “We need to create space for people’s fears and let them get to know people. And we need to counter the idea that my daughter is a threat to anyone else’s children.”

If Democrats continue to insist on letting boys and men compete in sports against girls and women, they’re going to lose a lot of elections. This isn’t a 50-50 issue or even a 60-40 issue. It’s closer to an 85-15 issue.

Asked recently what his party should do, Ohio’s Tim Ryan, perhaps the last Blue Dog Democrat in all of Congress, said, “You start with a complete reset. I mean, we need a rebrand.”

This might sound good, but rebranding this hard-left Democrat Party will be about as easy as getting the skunk spray out of a shepherd-husky mix. Good luck with that.