The Reagan and Clinton Backlash.
Most of today's so-called conservatives believe the "conservative revolution" began with Ronald Reagan in 1976, when he challenged Gerald Ford at their convention. When Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in 1980, they were in hog heaven. And it smelled like a rose garden.
It was finally time to begin their revolt against liberal programs and the liberal Supreme Court. In every election since 1980, they have found reasons to continue to go farther and farther to the right. They had their issues which were set in concrete : abortion, gun rights, tax cuts, defense spending, etc. Each election they became more extreme until they finally crashed the system and were unable to keep their promises to their supporters.
In 2008, they lost their Tea Party supporters. However, with promises of change and demonization of the black guy in the White House, they were able to win back those Tea Party people in 2010 and also captured the House of Representatives by a huge margin, which they still hold.
By 2016, those discontented Republicans deserted the Republican Party in droves to support Donald Trump, who was anything but a "conservative". In fact, he had been supportive of liberal policies and Democratic candidates for many years. When Justice Antonin Scalia died, the "conservative revolution" was in it's death throes.
Bill Clinton came to power in 1992, by defeating GHWB, and by deserting a lot of liberal principles with the promotion of the DLC and their conservative ideas, such as NAFTA and welfare legislation and passage of the TeleCommunications Bill. Clinton and the Democrats in power believed that the Democrats could no longer win by pushing their liberal agenda. Liberals and progressives were pushed aside and told to vote for the candidate that could win the White House.
By 2008, with the nomination of Barack Obama, the DLC was set back to a large degree. He defeated Hillary Clinton to win the Presidency. However, the DLC was still in control of much of the Democratic establishment and Obama continued their trade policies and their defense policies, to a large degree. The first black President was hamstrung, not only by lingering DLC policies, but also, by the obstruction of lingering conservative loyalists. Under the circumstances, he made a lot of progress.
By 2016, Hillary was once again the favorite of the DLC and the Democratic establishment. Bill Clinton was one of her surrogates on the campaign trail. Many of the same supporters from Bill Clinton's presidency came back to help Hillary with her campaign. From the start, she was heavily favored to win the nomination.
But along came Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic Socialist, from Vermont. Young supporters from all across the country flocked to his rallies. He became a real threat to Hillary and DLC-supported Democratic establishment. He talked about a free public college education and raising the minimum wage to $15 dollar an hour. He said that we needed to break up the big banks and tax Wall Street speculation. He said we needed to invest in the infrastructure of this country and put millions to work rebuilding our nation.
Just as Donald Trump was the backlash to the Reagan conservative movement of the 1980's, Bernie Sanders was the backlash to the Clinton DLC'ers of the 1990's. No one knows where these movements are going to go but the desire for change is real.
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