but I'm fine to call myself a liberal, a Dem and/or a progressive

David French had an article decrying the leftward shift by white Democrats. He forgets just how much Nixon, Reagan, and Gingrich drove the party to the right. Strange how he had no trouble with the later.

Straight, white, male Democrats have only one reason to be Democrats, they believe in the positions of the party and don't believe in the GOP ones. For minorities it is different. Even conservative blacks and LGBT are often Democrats because the GOP is anethema to those communities. Only about 1/4 of LGBT voters, vote for GOP candidates and nearly all of them are either wealthy or oppose abortion. That leaves a whole bunch of relatively conservative positions (say opposing high taxes on the rich, favoring increased military spending, disfavoring the safety net) that can be and sometimes are held by LGBT Democrats. I doubt even single digit percentages of white, straight, male Democrats hold those positions.

racist conservatives. That idea ignores the many many numbers of us liberal white males.

I'm a white male liberal but I fully understand the stereotype. When I attend golf tournaments it's a white male crowd and I hear one pro-Trump comment after another. Likewise on sports message boards, which are overwhelmingly white males.

Among my white male friends I have many liberals from my old neighborhood in Miami, and some from college, but among non-college educated white male friends I met in Las Vegas, virtually none of them are liberal and in fact the hefty majority are ranting right wingers. I enjoy it when they try to debate politics because it is more comical than anything else. They stall out and don't know how to proceed when their handful of simplistic talking points are easily parried.

Even a heavy pro-red state like Utah still basically 3/1 even at worst case. Romney in 2012 got slight less than 75% of the Utah vote while Obama was 25%. That is incredibly lopsided by political standards but I always keep it in mind, because 3/1 is not much of anything. As a gambler I'm accustomed to 50/1 odds and above. Ten white people seated at a table in Utah. Amidst normal distribution 3 will vote Democratic. That's not exactly being shouted down.

"What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label, "Liberal"? If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But, if by a "Liberal," they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties - someone who believes that we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say that I'm a "Liberal." - John F. Kennedy

I was a senior in high school when he died.

I think we felt much the same as people felt when FDR died.

Could we ever get back what we lost?

I don’t think we have nor can we ever.