This message was self-deleted by its author

[PufPuf23]

22. C) has destroyed the Democratic Party

The current Democratic Party is the historic Democratic Party in name only.

A minority of Democrats in name only conspired to take over from within the Democratic Party of my youth.

In 1968 the Democratic Party splintered into four groups:

1. Hubert H. Humphrey, Johnson's Vice-President, gained the support of labor unions and big-city party bosses (such as Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley), who had been the Democratic Party's primary power base since the days of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was also believed that President Johnson himself was covertly supporting Humphrey, despite public claims of neutrality.


2. McCarthy rallied students and intellectuals who had been the early activists against the war in Vietnam;

3. Kennedy gained the support of Catholics, African-Americans, and other racial and ethnic minorities;

4. Conservative white Southern Democrats, or "Dixiecrats," their influence declining swiftly in the national party, tended to support either Vice-President Humphrey or George C. Wallace and the Alabama governor's third-party campaign in the general election.

The 1968 POTUS cycle included assassinations (RFK and MLK) and riots. The disgraced Nixon won the 1968 POTUS election and extended the Vietnam War. Racist, corrupt, and "owned" Nixon slowed Democratic progress in civil rights, peace, and economic justice until forced to resign in 1974.

The 1972 POTUS cycle included McGovern, Lindsay, George Wallace, Humphrey, and a range of other potential nominees. George Wallace started fast winning Florida and being generally competitive until a failed assassination attempt that gravely wounded Wallace.
McGovern, a Vietnam War peace candidate, lost in an extreme landslide.

Jimmy Carter replaced Ford as POTUS in the 1976 election. We forget and Carter has become a beloved Democratic figure but was considered a conservative Dixiecrat at the time of his election. He is considered a weak and ineffective POTUS. The GOP broke the Borland Amendment and provided arms to the Contras in Nicaragua financed by sale of arms to Iran during the Iran Hostage crisis and the hostages were released when Regan sworn in to office.

The next three POTUS election cycles were Reagan/Bush, Reagan Bush, and Reagan.

A new wind rose within the Democratic Party as traditional Democratic values continued to founder and neoliberalism became the guiding economic philosophy of both the Democrats and GOP.

Neo-liberals within the Democratic Party organized the DLC and championed Bill Clinton who won over the tired and corrupted GOP in the 1992 POTUS election. None of the four splinters of the 1968 Democratic Party brought the Democrats back into power. The New Democrats adopted many of the economic and empire stances of the GOP and married them to the social liberalism and diversity of the remaining FDR/JFK/LBJ Democrats. The New Democrats, Third Way is another label, are "C)" that willfully infected and have gained control at the upper levels and in public discourse of the Democratic Party. The New Democrats are kin to Rockefeller GOP, Reagan followers spread into what were traditionally under represented minority groups, former Dixiecrats, and higher income and professional class Democrats.

Now Liberals and FDR/JFK/LBJ Democrats are mocked and minimalized within what was "our" own Party which has become a Party of wealth and empire; and, thanks be to electronics, ready bread and circuses.