As a second Trump Administration takes shape, former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is arguing that the Democratic Party’s failures during the 2024 election cycle stemmed partly from a basic misunderstanding of how ordinary people think about politics.

“There is a part of what we have missed that I have been feeling for a long time, and that is that the political dynamic in this country is not Democrat-Republican — it’s insider-outsider,” Patrick said.

“I experienced that in the Commonwealth. It is true all over the country,” he added. “Most people feel like outsiders. They don’t feel like government is about them, is thinking about them.”

Patrick, who briefly sought the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2020 election cycle, said that several factors feed this perception, including candidates’ disinterest in discussing how they’ve concretely improved people’s lives and frequent inattentiveness to voters in non-battleground states.

Donald Trump deserves credit for responding to that sense of alienation it in a way that Democrats don’t, Patrick said.

“You come into that environment where those feelings have been surfacing for a long time, and you have a candidate in the Republican nominee, in my view, who doesn’t actually intend to do anything for the people who feel like outsiders — but to his credit, he does talk to them,” he said. “We try to do stuff for folks, we as Democrats, who feel like outsiders, — but we don’t talk to them.”

While Patrick, who made those remarks in an interview on GBH’s Boston Public Radio, praised Trump for speaking to voters who feel marginalized, he had harsh words for the cabinet Trump is assembling prior to reassuming the presidency.

Collectively, Patrick said, Trump’s nominations are “disrespectful of government and of the public ... It’s like it’s the remake of 'The Apprentice,' for everybody to kind of watch and enjoy and giggle at — as if it doesn’t have consequences practically in our lives, in the life of the Commonwealth, in the reputation of the United States around the world.”

Patrick also said he thought the U.S. Senate should reject the nomination of former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who Trump tapped to serve as U.S. attorney general after the withdrawal of his initial pick, former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz. Prior to Gaetz’s nomination and his ensuing resignation from Congress, the House Ethics Committee had investigated whether Gaetz had engaged in sexual relations with a minor and used illegal drugs during his congressional tenure.

Patrick, who led the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division under President Bill Clinton, noted that Bondi supported Trump’s unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen by Joe Biden. Given that, Patrick said, Bondi would likely support Trump’s stated plans to use the Department of Justice to target his political opponents.

“That pattern to me would suggest she should not be confirmed,” Patrick said.

But Patrick also voiced pessimism about the prospect of the Senate rejecting Bondi for the post.

“I have hope,” he said. “But I’ve stopped expecting that the Senate will do what the Senate’s supposed to do.”

This article has been updated to include a reference to Deval Patrick’s run for the presidency.