Sorry @NinjaCow64 for taking so long to respond to your thoughtful post. I was not ignoring you and meant no offense:
No worries! I apologise for the same thing - as I explained I intended to reply to this earlier, but circumstances conspired against me.
Multiple things wrong here. First, you seem to be contradicting yourself here. On the one hand you are saying that the Republicans lost because they ran Biden-like candidates, then you are saying that they lost because the Democrats ran a Trump like candidate. Which is it? Did Republicans snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by running establishment candidates, or did they get steamrolled by an unbeatable generational messiah candidate? While its certainly possible to say both factors contributed, to make a valid argument here, you've got to take a position on which factor was the most important.
I would say that Obama being great at campaigning was probably the more significant factor, but if your narrative of that "Republican voters are willing to vote for whomever because they think it will advance the cause" was true then it would have been a much closer race.
The fact that Obama is considered an unbeatable generational messiah candidate should be a condemnation of the American electoral system. There should be appealing choices every election, not "which geriatric is less genocidal?"
Second, your premise is flawed. McCain's brand/appeal was not at all like Biden. McCain's whole deal was that he was a "maverick", ie he was promising to buck the Republican establishment and deliver change, immigration policy being one prominent example. Palin as his running mate was an extension of this as she would have been the first woman to be VPOTUS, and she had cultivated a "maverick" reputation herself. In fact it was McCain's divergence from the party line that made many Republicans unenthusiastic about him. He didn't hate illegal immigrants enough and he was too civil/gracious towards Obama for example.
That's fair, maybe its inaccurate to classify McCain as a Biden. If your assessment of him is accurate then his problem that he was maverick in the wrong direction.
In any case, I think some of your point(s) have merit. Romney was certainly a consensus candidate that Republicans weren't as enthusiastic about, similar to Biden on the Democratic side... but consider that Romney lost that election, whereas as @Lexicus points out, Biden won. So the point you seem to be making does not seem to stand up. A better analogy I think would be Hillary, who was certainly the non-negotiable establishment candidate, somewhat similar to Romney in that regard, and she lost to the "change" messiah Trump. Remember that Hillary also lost to Obama in 2008.
Yes, because Obama hadn't bungled anything nearly as badly as Trump bungled the Covid response and (more importantly) the resulting economic fallout.
Biden has been so uninspiring as a candidate I have a feeling that people might just forgive Trump for his previous sins.
Its also the case that both McCain and Romney received substantially less votes than Baby Bush in 2004, still enough to beat Kerry, but not Obama. Its also worth noting that Hillary got less votes in 2016 than Obama in 2012. I think what all that points to, is more about the strength of Obama as a candidate than the weakness of McCain, Romney or Hillary, especially since Hillary actually got more votes than Trump (5th most in US history) despite her losing in the EC. Trump got the second highest vote total in US history in 2020, second only to Biden's vote total in 2020 so again, the elections seem to be more about the strength of the candidates than the weakness, ie "establishment" nature, of the opponent.
I am emphasising the weakness of McCain and Romney because it runs contrary to your narrative that the Republicans will vote for whoever because they have faith that the Republicans will get them what they want eventually. This is not supported by the evidence.
The other thing is that in my (incredibly simplistic admittedly) modelling of presidential candidates they are either a weak candidate or a strong candidate. Yes Obama was a fantastic candidate, but if the Republicans hadn't placed their bets losers like McCain and Romney they might have had a chance at beating him. Likewise, Trump was an incredibly strong candidate but Clinton was horrendous and someone who wasn't so hated might have had a chance against him.
One of the criticisms of Democrats that I've heard IIRC recently from @Gorbles , is that (paraphrasing) Democrats should stop over-promising. But there is tension between that, and what you seem to be, correctly IMO, identifying, specifically, that part of what made Obama such a strong candidate was all that soaring pie-in-the-sky that he was promising, but ultimately, failed to deliver on. Do you see the catch-22?
I don't agree with Gorbles on this point. I'll admit I am doing that annoying "here's how I'd win elections if I was a liberal" thing that right wing people do to liberals and the leftists but from the left-wing, regardless - the Democrats would be a lot more popular if they fought in the borderline extralegal ways that the Republicans are willing to fight. Even if they won, they would be able to go back to their base and say "we tried our hardest". The Republicans have accused the Democrats of using "lawfare" to get their way, in typical Republican projection it is the Republicans who have mainly been doing that. If the Democrats were willing to use lawfare to fight for people's rights then they wouldn't be viewed as the useless cowards that they are.
The Democrats really should have taken Eric Holder's advice - when they go low, they should have kicked them.
Anyway, the bottom line is... the Democrats don't lose based on whether they run establishment candidates. They lose based on whether their voters turn out and vote or not. They've won with "establishment"/consensus candidates and they've won with "change" candidates.
Yes, and having candidates that don't suck for the moment is a great way of driving turnout.
Maybe Obama would not have won if it weren't for the mortgage meltdown. Maybe Carter would not have won if it wasn't for Watergate. Maybe Reagan would not have won if it was not for the oil embargo. Maybe Baby Bush would not have won if it wasn't for Monica Lewinsky. Maybe Trump would not have won if it wasn't for Comey. Maybe Clinton would not have won if it wasn't for Ross Perot. My point obviously, is that there is always some factor going on that has a major influence on the outcome of the election. 2020/Covid was not unique in that regard.
Sure. I just wanted to emphasise that I don't think Biden was a strong candidate in 2020 and that they could have run someone as awful as Clinton and likely still won that one.
Again, this is manifestly incorrect, since the Democrats already won with Biden. Also, if the only way the Democrats can win is with a candidate on the level of Obama to motivate their voters to be bothered to vote, then the Democrats don't have what it takes to win.
You're right. The Democrats don't have what it takes to win.
Correct, but I will reiterate that "the Democratic Party" is comprised of the voters. So ultimately, that is where the "fault" lies.
Democratic Party candidates are elected by members of the Democratic party, sure. But even ignoring the massive Democratic Party bureaucracy that disproportionately favours establishment candidates, the average person who votes in a Democratic primary isn't representative of the average voter or the average American.
EDIT: Somehow this quote didn't get added:
This is objectively untrue. However, I am fully aware that folks are mentally and emotionally committed to this narrative and its not a hill that I'm inclined to die on.
I am happy to walk it back to "Biden isn't doing enough". Which is true, he isn't pushing anywhere near as hard as Trump pushed for his policies.