Reply #51: partially correct in some instances??? [View All]

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s smashing victory in the 1936 presidential election revealed that the American political landscape had shifted. With FDR at its head, the Democratic Party put together a formidable coalition whose main components were lower-income groups in the great cities -- African-Americans, union members, and ethnic and religious minorities, many from recent immigrant groups -- and the traditional source of Democratic strength, “the Solid South.” Roosevelt carried every former Confederate state all four times he ran, but no Democrat has done so since 1944, FDR’s final race. This “New Deal coalition,” as it came to be known, powered the Democratic Party for the next thirty years.... Roosevelt had put together what came to be called the “New Deal Coalition,” an alliance of voters from different regions of the country and from racial, religious and ethnic groups. The coalition combined southern Protestants, northern Jews, Catholics and blacks from urban areas, labor union members, small farmers in the middle west and Plains states, and liberals and radicals. This diverse group, with some minor alterations, would power the Democrats for the next thirty years
http://www.americanpresident.org/history/franklindelanoroosevelt/biography/AmericanFranchise.common.shtml

would define New Deal Democrats as economic liberals who support strong federal intervention in the economy, large public works projects, subsidies and trade protection for distressed industries, a large federal workforce, and a very top heavy approach to implementing federal programs. While the ranks of New Deal Democrats included many liberals, they also included many social conservatives (particularly Southern Whites and Roman Catholics). Because many New Deal Democrats represented large immigrant populations, including those who fled from oppressive regimes, they have historically been very patriotic, fiercely anti-communist and anti-fascist, and generally supportive of military intervention abroad. Indeed, many so-called "neocons" are former New Deal Democrats who left the party when George McGovern, with the solid backing of the New Left, won the party's presidential nomination in 1972.

The New Left, which emerged in the late 60s, has tended to be deeply distrustful of government institutions generally, and have favored a local, grass-rootes oriented approach to administering federal programs. They generally reject pork barrel politics as crass and corrupt. In contrast to the immigrant, urban, blue collar roots of many New Deal Democrats, the New Left tend to be white collar, college educated, less ethnic and more affluent in their background. The New Left strongly opposes military intervention abroad, favored a more conciliatory approach to the Soviet Union, and supported sharp reductions in military expenditures. The New Left, unlike the New Deal Democrats, readily embraces hot button cultural issues like feminism, abortion, gay rights, and gun control.

The New Democrats generally consist of three types of politicos: first, former New Deal Democrats who have come to recognize the limits of government and the need to reduce federal spending to more sustainable levels. Second, former New Lefties who either grew tired of the largely ineffective tactics of the New Left or who began to question the more extreme aspects of the New Left agenda. And third, former Republicans who could no longer take the ideological extremism and supply side economic policies of the New Right.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1634214&mesg_id=1634740

the charge of the Democratic party having been infiltrated by moderate and conservative Democrats is not supportable, historically. The Democratic party, historically, was a coalition of Southerners and northern ethnics, particularly Catholics. It was not a truly liberal party, as measured by the standards of LaFollette and co., until the 1970s. The moderate and conservative Democrats, to a large degree, are the remaining base of the FDR coalition.