Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack got it exactly right then when he told The Washington Post's Greg Jaffe that the current state of the Democratic party is like a tree that "looks healthy on the outside but is in the throes of slow and long-term demise.”

This chart built by Philip Bump makes Vilsack's point in stark terms.

Placed in the context of the last eight years of elections, 2016 looks more like the rule than the exception. The rise of President Obama obscured the fact that the Democratic Party he represented was struggling in virtually every other way in which a party's health is judged. Clinton's loss should make that fact plain to Democrats: The country, judging by down-ballot election results nationwide, is center-right -- and holding. And the Democratic bench is woefully devoid of major rising stars, itself a function of the party's down-ballot struggles over the last eight years.

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The "why" of this Democratic decline is far more complicated. Vilsack blames an unwillingness to talk to rural voters. "We need to speak more directly to our folks in rural America,” Vilsack told Jaffe. “And we have to spend time there.” Others cite racism, economic anxiety, a national party that has moved too far left. And so on.