2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: For 2020, the Democratic Party Should Take Back Its Nomination Methods [View all]Hortensis
(58,785 posts)together. I was pretty sure I would end up considered "Democratic establishment," but that is not as dreadful an insult to me as it is to you. We need improvement, all right, but overall I believe we're the only party fit to govern these days and that we are fit to govern.
You see the nation's troubles arising from problems with the Democratic Party and believe the fix must start there.
I know the nation's problems overwhelmingly result from the conservative right's slide into extremism, and with it the dismantling of restraints on money in politics that was engineered 100% by the right over our opposition.
We need to wind this up, but please take a look at this. This is the ideological pattern of the U.S. CONGRESS since 1879. That cluster of lines at the bottom reflects legislative behaviors of Southern Democrats, Democrats, and Northern Democrats. Today's Democratic caucus is now more liberal than it has been in a century.
Now take a look at what's happened to the GOP caucus. They now espouse ideology that when we were young not only was far right of mainstream conservatism but in most cases was not even considered respectable in the days of Ozzie and Harriet.