This year, punctuated by Hillary Clinton’s loss, exposed the remarkably shallow depth of the Democratic bench. The size of the Republican primary field — for which the GOP was relentlessly mocked — was also a sign of the party’s health up and down the ballot. Democrats simply didn’t have the political talent to put forward 17 candidates (or even seven). That’s partly because there’s been limited opportunity to move up in the leadership ranks. Pelosi (Calif.) and Reps. Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) and James E. Clyburn (S.C.) have had a death grip on the party’s top congressional slots for a very long time. It’s also partly because the Democratic farm system is hurting.

Clinton’s formidable political machine scared off most of what little competition she had, and the party lined up behind her. Democratic insiders touted her status as the lone serious contender as a virtue. It demonstrated unity, they said, and she was by far their best candidate anyway, they argued.

Yes, she had one of the most impressive résumés of her generation. She was one of the party’s top fundraisers. And she knew practically every Democratic activist and donor in the country by their first names. But she was also a deeply flawed candidate who was the definition of “the establishment,” making her a remarkably poor fit in a year when anti-establishment sentiment was running so high. That should have been clear when Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), a self-avowed democratic socialist, came from nowhere to make the primary a real race and to force the start of a conversation about what sort of party the Democrats should be. It should have been doubly clear when Trump, with no government service, emerged as the GOP nominee.

And yet Clinton ran on her experience, and as close to President Obama and his record as possible. “America is stronger because of President Obama’s leadership, and I am better because of his friendship,” she said when accepting the party’s nomination. “. . . I don’t think President Obama and Vice President Biden get the credit they deserve for saving us from the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes.”

Obama, for his part, stumped enthusiastically for Clinton during the general-election campaign. (His persistent critics argued that was because his legacy was at stake.)

But for all their attempts to peacefully pass the baton, the Democrats were hit with one unexpected event after another. Email hacks of the Democratic National Committee and top party operatives — hacks that U.S. intelligence attributed to Russia — forced Democrats on their back foot over and over again. Careful planning for the party’s convention was thrown into disarray when, the day before it began, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned amid outrage over hacked emails that showed she and her team had several fingers on the scale for Clinton in the primary fight. It didn’t help that in the final days of the race, FBI Director James Comey resurrected the debate over the private email server Clinton had used while secretary of state. Whatever his motives, Comey reinforced a point that Trump had been hammering all year: that the Clintons thought they were above the rules and that a cloud of scandal always trailed them.

In the end, Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2.7 million votes, or 2 percent of all ballots cast. But she couldn’t revive the Obama coalition in key states. And she couldn’t sway the people who wanted the radical change embodied by Trump. What Democrats expected to be the historic election of the first female president was instead a devastating loss — for Clinton, Obama and their political vision. That reversal of fortune was palpable in the days following the election as Democrats reeled from a knockout blow that they never even saw coming.

As Obama’s term winds down, his popularity remains relatively high, but his legacy is very much in question. Trump has talked about repealing large parts of the Affordable Care Act and rolling back executive orders in areas such as immigration and environmental regulation. The Cabinet the president-elect has chosen is among the most conservative in recent memory.

Meanwhile, Merrick Garland, Obama’s Supreme Court pick — who, thanks to GOP obstruction, has been in limbo since March — is unlikely to ever take a seat on the nation’s highest court. Instead, Democrats are girding for Trump’s nominees and an onslaught of conservative judicial challenges. Ohio legislators this past week offered a taste of what’s to come with their “heartbeat” bill, prohibiting abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be detected. (Typically around six weeks, before most women even know they’re pregnant.)

The state of the Democratic Party was perhaps best illustrated by the desperate hope generated this past week by Biden’s offhand comment about running for president in 2020. Biden would be 78, a little on the old side even when you consider that the soon-to-be sitting president will then be 74. Elizabeth Warren, the other oft-mentioned savior of the Democrats, will be 71 years oldwhen that race comes around — not exactly the next generation of party leadership. Among younger Democrats, New Jersey’s Cory Booker, now 47, is seen as the next big thing, but the campaign he ran to get to the Senate wasn’t confidence-inspiring.

Obama, to his credit, seems to grasp the party’s problems and how to fix them. He has pledged to raise money (and attention) for the next round of redistricting, when Democrats can truly begin to rebuild their ranks. But that's not until after the 2020 election.

Perhaps most important, there’s a deep divide within the party over the way forward from a policy perspective. Do Democrats embrace the cultural liberalism and creative-class appeal of the Obama years? Or do they return to the working-man message of the Biden wing? Who decides? How? When?

This is what being on the wrong side of a massive bet looks like. It’s a lousy way to start 2017.