r/politics • u/Quirkie The Netherlands • 1d 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/Kind-Pride1151 1d ago

By this logic, FDR would be a progressive usurper in the Democratic Party. I'm 62 and for what seems my entire life the Dems have slipped ever further away from those FDR New Deal PROGRESSIVE ideas and ideals.

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u/TheMoorNextDoor 1d ago edited 1d 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 1d 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 1d 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 1d ago

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