I had a bit of a dawning epiphany this morning reading the Politico articles on Latinos who flipped for Trump (Link) and Adam Jentleson (former CoS for Fetterman) starting a think thank working in support of moderating interest group influence (Link).
The Democratic Party is just consumed with the idea that it's a big tent, and the electorate can be sliced up demographically with targeted appeals for each, narrowly defined subcategory. South Texas Mexicans (1st or 2nd gen), suburban women who voted for Bush but hate Trump, voters who grew up in a church but now define themselves as non-religious--they know these are groups, they have the data to target them, and they've convinced themselves this is how you win elections. It's a confluence between the knowing that the Democratic constituency doesn't have a lot in common, a preference for inclusiveness, and openness to bring in tech solutions (or mirroring what the social media companies have done to steal attention from traditional media).
Even now, the party is proposing that it needs a leftie Joe Rogan, or needs to focus on what might bring back in young white males. That the medium is the message and that Democratic policies are popular, it's the failure to make government work that's the problem (aka the Ezra Klein analysis). The Biden BBB Plan and Inflation Reduction Act was partially an effort to help in areas that lost jobs over the previous three decades (if you're Biden and you're bemoaning the loss of union jobs, and believe that unions inherently are aligned with Dem interests, then increasing union jobs solves multiple problems). The Buttigieg's and other Biden administrators have a party line of "we failed to do it fast enough and when we did move fast, we failed to get credit for our wins."
Unfortunately, that's just another way to isolate out a portion of the electorate and what can't be overcome is that the message this sends to everyone else. Now @Brisketexan just wrote this:
And it's substantively correct (if a little hyperbolic), but the idea behind it is that voters are rejecting a Democratic party that says "I want to help you, first gen college African American. And you, Appalachian single mom. And you, Portland hipster lesbian," even if you're in one of those groups because you're not uniting behind anything and the Democratic party is happy to cater to you as an individual.
Furthermore, maybe you're actually irate that, as a single mom in West Virginia, you resent these first generation African Americans college kids getting help, that the Portland hipster lesbian has access to health care or community benefits that you do not, etc. There is no benefit to being a member of a coalition that tries to give a little something to everyone, because your perception is someone else is getting more.
It's easy to say "we need to get mean", or "this doesn't work, do the other thing." I'm not sure it's very clear what the "other thing" is, but maybe it's as simple as to stop targeting subgroups just because you can. If you have a political message that isn't a good fit for a larger community, then it's a poor fit for winning elections.