They had 60 votes to get Obamacare enacted, which was a historic achievement. Obviously your coalition won’t agree on everything and you have to keep the marginal votes on board. That’s just how politics works. My point is that there is a more potent democratic coalition out there even within the framework of the Senate system. To the contrary, the Senate system long benefited Democrats because it favors working class rural areas over moneyed industries (finance, tech, etc.) concentrated on the coasts.
The country and politics of the nation have shifted. The divide is rural/urban now. The cities have the vast majority of the wealth but not the accompanying representation. The rural areas of the country are overwhelmingly conservative and increasingly white nationalist in sentiment. What the state of things 50 years ago was is no longer relevant.
The election of Donald Trump was clearly a white nationalist backlash. This is obvious and it was an enabling event for more extreme elements of white nationalism. One only needs to look at the rhetoric used to see this. Don’t confuse “white nationalist” with “white supremecist” (though the latter is a subset of the former).
The underpinnings of white nationalism have been around for a while but really came to the fore in 2016. The desire to keep “our America” and other catch phrases are indicative.
EDIT: Having white, nationalist sentiments or leanings is not necessarily bad or wrong. It’s quite natural for a majority population to have such sentiments when their status as a majority gets threatened. The demographics and gender power structure of the nation is noticeably changing and having a backlash against that change is common.
