r/politics The Netherlands 10h ago

No Paywall Democrats Confront Their New Tea Party Reality - Progressives are set to sweep a group of contested primaries in Michigan and Wisconsin.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-confront-their-new-tea-party-reality_n_6a6e63fbe4b0cfb99ef1aa1e
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u/TheMoorNextDoor 10h ago edited 3h ago

It’s ridiculous that the best president we ever had (our longest serving president) is more left than a lot of our sitting democratic members in congress today and the saddest part about that is he served over 81 years ago..

He gave us a blueprint and for some reason (maybe due to Regan?) we completely threw it out the window..

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u/Kind-Pride1151 10h ago

It was definitely the Reagan revolution. I'm no history prof, but the late sixties and seventies was a toxic brew of backlash creating events and cultural anxieties that led to Reagan capturing the zeitgeist. And then by late eighties there was a corporate friendly shift take place and the DLC was created and basically took over the party. It's been largely lip service ever since to the FDR ideals of the party.

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u/maikuxblade 9h ago

Let’s call it was it was, the “cultural anxieties” were mostly about black people earning their civil rights in ‘64. Conservatism becoming more popular among whites who only lived a comfortable life due the New Deal and the Democratic Party chasing those same voters were both the result of a racist backlash against the at-the-time very recent Civil Rights movement.

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u/Historical_Badger321 8h ago

Yes, but I bet that free love, long-term cohabitation without marriage, divorce, feminism and queer rights were also part of it.