The one big reason for the blue tsunami is all the reasons

There's a lot of talk about why Democrats won so very big last week. The right answer, I'd argue, isn't one that polling will pick up well, because it's not a neat, single-category answer.

Did people vote for Democrats because of high gas prices? Yes.

Because of the intensely stupid war of choice that produced those high gas prices? Yes.

Because of ICE abuses? Yes.

Because of data centers? Yes.

Because of Trump's ballroom? Also yes.

I could go on, but my point is that not only are these reasons for voting for Democrats not mutually exclusive, they're all connected.

People are, as they go about their lives, paying for expensive gas and hearing about members of their communities kidnapped off the streets by masked government goons and worried about data centers coming into their areas and reading stories about American troops killed fighting Iran and stories about the ballroom and the arch and the golf course – and it all adds up to something. It adds up to the pervasive sense that they as ordinary people are not just not being served by this government, they're seen as bugs to be crushed on the way to profit – corporate profit, sure, but also the personal profit of this president and his family and friends. 

The AI company slides him a few million for his ballroom or "invests" in one of his businesses and boom, here comes a data center to your neighborhood. 

Trump's lackeys send ICE into your neighborhood and there are people being beaten and shot in the streets and also the local economy takes a big hit. And you look around and ICE is giving these goons huge signing bonuses and paying outlandish amounts of money for warehouses it plans to use as detention centers, while everyone you know is struggling to get by.

For years, progressives have looked at polling that says that Democratic policy positions are popular and wondered why that doesn't seem to move more votes. Why do people simultaneously vote to raise their state's minimum wage while voting for politicians who oppose raising the minimum wage, for instance? It's about the saliency of specific issues and how they weigh the whole, how they assess which politicians more broadly fit their vision of the country. It's very rare that that is overcome by a single issue. 

In this election, things came together and added up to a shift in how voters felt about the country's direction – fear for some, rage for others – that is more than the sum of its parts. Absolutely everything about how this nation is run is spinning out, being delivered into the hands of a few rich people who have a sociopathic disregard for the lives of anyone who has a net worth of less than $10 million and doesn't embrace white supremacy – and voters feel that, even if they pick out one part of it as most salient in talking about their votes. And that, again, is why Democrats can't pick one or two issues to try to fight it out and pass legislation on. Because it's about – forgive me for saying it – a vibe shift. Voters set it rolling. If Democrats don't take it and run with it, they'll fail.