The barriers are more obvious than are the alternatives

A good roundup of data and opinions from How Deep Is the Hole Democrats Are In? by Ruy Teixeira.  The subheading is Pretty deep.

I have argued in the past that Democrats became divorced from national culture beginning in the late 1990s and then suffered structurally from the Obama years when his electoral skill benefitted only his own personal campaigns.  The Democratic Party suffered massively, dropping more than 1,000 elected positions nationwide and in the process losing much of its bench strength and pipeline of new talent.  

Post Obama, the Democratic Party policy focus drifted ever further from the interests and concerns of the electorate, addressing ever more abstract, esoteric and fundamentally inconsequential issues.  

In 2024 they had values and policies abhorrent to the electorate and mediocre candidates at best.  Looking forward towards 2028, the talent pipeline is just as empty.  That Rahm Emanuel and Josh Shapiro are probably their strongest prospects is an astonishing indictment.  That their field consists of shopworn has-beens such as Newsom, Pritzker, Walz, and Harris is evidence of the Obama extinction event when the pipeline was obliterated.  

If, and a big if, they lose both their financial arm, ActBlue, which seems not improbable, and if they also lose the until now unquantified but apparently massive financial support of the Federal Budget via programs such as USAID and the more traditional financial support of allied universities, Democrats would suffer yet another blow to survivability.

At the beginning of 2025, Democrats have lost voters on a massive scale.  Their policy portfolio is alien to much of the voting population.  These two issues are the focus of Teixeira's update.  In addition, though, the Democrat's talent pipeline is meager and their financial juggernaut is wheezing and possibly rickety.

Bad as it is seems, nothing is determinative.  Parties bounce back.  The electorate is fickle.  A roster with weak insiders opens doors for new and unexpected talent.  

As deep a hole as they currently are in, Democrats can come back and come back stronger.  

In the current circumstances though, the challenges to a party resurrection are far more clear than are the means by which that resurrection might happen.