2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Hillary WILL NOT Lobby Against The TPP [View all]ConservativeDemocrat
(2,720 posts)I'd say that the chief difference between the wings of our party have more to do with what I see as reflexive hostility toward religion, a belief that every problem (even foreign problems) are somehow America's fault, anger at the business community, anger at the US military, and at times a rosy-colored view of history. (The FDR/Truman/Eisenhower 1950s were indeed dream times for white Americans - why any white American male, no matter how uneducated could go right out and immediately get a good paying union job. But other people around the world, and even in the US, remember those times with considerably less pleasure.) And due to Democrats' divorce from the Dixiecrat constituency (the Voting Rights Act and the immediate follow on of the GOP Southern Strategy), even if you believe that making appeals to moderates in the business community is some moral betrayal of the Democratic brand, from a purely pragmatic perspective, it is literally the only way we can remain a major party.
Unionized racist southern FDR Democrats in the 1940s and 1950s became Reagan Democrats in the 1980s, and are Trump Republicans today. And personally, I don't care how poor those "Birt Certifict" sign waving teabagger morons are, or how much they're suffering from lack of unions, I would much rather have Democrats keep our centrist/conservative focus on keeping government mostly out of the way of business, than pander to them.
Pandering won't work anyway. They'll never vote for a black man or a woman of any color. They're not exactly deep thinkers.
- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community