Ask Russ and the other Democrats who lost to the weak and wounded Republicans in the Senate races in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida
Or, in New Hampshire and Vermont where we lost the governor's mansions in reliably blue states in a Presidential election year
Treat it as a Black Swan event all you want. But, we've been falling further and further behind for the last twenty-five years and we need to fix it

As to the electorate will learn and the perfect storm, we've been telling ourselves that for years. Bush II was supposed to be the perfect storm and it turned out to be a momentary shower