Well, let's be clear. I don't think we even can win back all of the Obama -> Trump voters, particularly among his hardcore fans that love him because he's "finally a politician who tells it like it is." But we don't actually need that many to win WI/PA/MI (OH/IA are tougher nuts to crack), particularly if we can improve turnout. Running hard on healthcare and other pocketbook issues just doesn't seem to have much downside to me if it can win over voters in the Rust Belt and doesn't scare voters in the Sun Belt. And I think we can talk more about economic justice without compromising on social justice.
To win back the voters who like the fact that Trump "tells it like it is", you don't need democrats to start being racist. You just need democrats to start being more politically incorrect in their language. Gillibrand understands this well. Democrats need to stop being so goddamn timid when it comes to talking about stuff they believe in.
And the whole problem with democrats in general is that we don't have any real ground game network whatsoever. Our fucked up idea of a ground game is to make races into "high profile" races and then convince people to focus on giving all their money to those high profile races. It's not only a waste of money, but looking at last night it clearly is counterproductive to nationalize every single race.
Instead we need to discourage all this "high profile" bullshit and instead encourage democrats to help democrats nearby. Jon Ossof should have spent less time trying to nationalize his race and more time trying to boost other Georgia democrats. Same with Quist. Same with every democrat that has run a state or local race, because the voters are there, but we can't be announcing to the rooftops that we are putting all our eggs into these few baskets or the GOP will just respond by making sure to focus on those few races as well.
Also, liberals and progressives need to be willing to play more dirty tactics at this point. I don't necessarily mean violence, but we can't be playing by a ruleset that the GOP refuses to follow.