It has long been observed that Bill Clinton started the process by placing his own political needs—and boy, did he have needs—above the needs of his party. The Clintons were always so consumed in building up themselves that they couldn’t spare any effort to build up allies and successors, and they always kept their supporters scrambling to construct ad hoc lines of defense against the latest scandal. Thus the situation today, where there’s the Clinton machine, and outside of it there’s nothing.

Barack Obama continued this hollowing out, but for different reasons—and with more complicity from his party. He and Democratic leaders in Congress made the decision to sacrifice their congressional majorities in order to shove through a series of deeply unpopular initiatives—ObamaCare, and more recently his executive orders on issues like immigration. The backlash from the public didn’t just take away the Democrats’ majorities. It specifically swept away the moderate Democrats from places like the South, leaving the Democrats with leaders who are deeply entrenched in far-left redoubts like Boston and San Francisco but who have no track record of appealing to voters anywhere else in the country.

What they may not have anticipated is how badly this would hit them on the state level, where they have been wiped out in the statehouses. This further weakens the bench by ending the career of many a young Democratic politician before it even begins. It’s like a big league baseball team trying to recruit players without access to the “farm teams” where rising stars can gain experience and demonstrate their talent. And as with the effect on Congress, this specifically deprives the Democrats of talent outside a narrow demographic that dominates big cities and the coasts.