By now, we all know the Democrats’ “defense of democracy” push for the presidential election fell flat. But why?

One reason is that the talk of threats to democracy felt completely irrelevant to most people’s number-one concern going into the election: the economy, specifically the skyrocketing cost of living these past few years: groceries, housing, consumer goods, and more. But there’s also the fact that the way Democrats talk about democracy is out of touch with the way most Americans think about it.

As a raft of surveys make clear, most everyone in America feels like the country’s democracy is under threat — even Donald Trump supporters. A lot of that has to do with both parties suspecting the other side’s leadership of plotting to subvert it in different ways. But a large and under-discussed part of what drives this is the widespread feeling that American democracy is not delivering a decent life for its citizens and has been captured by big money.