^ The bottom line I take from Nate's latest article is that the few elected Democrats in town are more concerned with their own necks over the good of the City, thus limiting their collective advancement via their party.
I am not sure the GOP'ers are any better here - they just have access to more money to support image building campaigns to hide their lack of effectiveness on behalf of the average citizen (witness the last 6+ years under the current mayor and going years back with their control of the City Council).
This appears to mimic the politics most everywhere today: Politicos who care more about their next election and to win at any cost vs. performing their civic duty to their constituents. The most current, but certainly not only, example is the GOP'ers standing by Trump, even after January 6th.
In some ways, the local, state and national GOP have the opposite problem: They are TOO organized - around one person (i.e. a machine) who has too much control.
The root of all of this is gerrymandering and campaign financing. Fix that and we might get better representation from both parties.