Why Castro just endorsed Warren's "fighting Democrat"

[DemocracyMouse]

This is a deep dive, but may explain how the Democrats lost their path after Reagan, and why Castro just endorsed Elizabeth Warren. Warren, along with other "traditional progressive" Democrats (and social Democrats) is trying to reconnect the party to its former mission.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/how-america-broke-up-with-the-democratic-party/
How America Broke Up With the Democratic Party
By Thom Hartmann / Independent Media Institute
Dec. 19, 2019

The year Reagan was sworn in, we were the richest nation in the world, and other than a few wobbles during the Civil War and two World Wars, our national debt had been relatively steady in inflation-adjusted dollars since the administration of George Washington. We were the world’s largest creditor—more countries owed us money than any other nation on earth.

Today, after nearly 40 years of neoliberal Reaganomics, we are the world’s largest debtor nation, and our national debt nearly outweighs our annual GDP. The year Reagan was sworn into office, the United States was the largest importer of raw materials in the world, and the world’s largest exporter of finished, manufactured goods. We brought in ores for manufacturing, and shipped out everything from TVs and computers to cars and clothing.

Today, things are totally reversed: We are now the world’s mining pit, the largest exporter of raw materials, and the world’s largest importer of finished, manufactured goods. We’ve gone from trade surpluses to trade deficits, a reflection of the fact that our factory floors had moved to Asia and Mexico.... In 1960, about one in four Americans worked in manufacturing, producing things of lasting wealth for our nation. Today, after jumping headfirst into one free-trade agreement after another, fewer than one in ten Americans work in manufacturing. Between 2000 and 2017, 5.5 million manufacturing jobs have been lost. They didn’t disappear; they just moved to low-wage factories in foreign nations.

Ironically, Republican President Eisenhower (1952-1960) knew that Americans loved FDR’s New Deal, and continued FDR’s trade policies... He told his brother Edgar in a 1954 letter, “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.” Eisenhower added, “There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are… Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.” But Clinton and the “moderate” DLC Democrats embraced becoming Eisenhower Republicans, even as Eisenhower would have repudiated their policies.

“CLINTON SWIPES THE GOP’S LYRICS” read the headline of a 1996 Washington Post column by E.J. Dionne, which opened with this prescient paragraph: “‘The good news is that we may elect a Republican president this year,’ said Republican consultant Alex Castellanos. ‘The bad news is that it may be Bill Clinton.’” The result was the beginning of the Great Uncoupling the Democratic Party experienced in the 1990s, with formerly Democratic-voting working-class and poor people going over to the GOP, a trend we saw continued with Trump’s election. As Harry Truman once said, “The people don’t want a phony Democrat. If it’s a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time..."