Reply #133: Actually, the Democratic Party has moved pretty far to the left [View All]

The Democratic Party of today bears almost no resemblance to the Democratic Party that nominated JFK. Back then, there were a lot of Democratic hawks (including JFK himself). The hawk wing of the party is virtually gone. Back then, the South was still solidly Democratic -- if it weren't for the South, Nixon would have won in 1960. The entire Southern conservative wing has also disappeared, along with the Democratic congressional majority. The Democratic Party back then also had rock solid support among Catholics. In 2004, George Bush won the Catholic vote, and it seems reasonable to assume that the Democratic Party's very liberal stance on issues like abortion contributed to that.

So let's see:

Foreign policy hawks -- gone.
Southern conservatives -- gone.
Socially conservative Catholics -- gone.

What's left of the Democratic Party is far more liberal on social policy and foreign policy. As for economic policy, the DU conventional wisdom that the Democratic Party was once a worker's paradisc of socialist thought is, like so many other DU beliefs, badly misplaced. The Democratic Party had a cozy relationship with Wall Street going all the way back to the 1880's.