Quote:If you look at the two major parties and their political drift over the past 70 or so years, the Repubs have drifted from conservative to arch right extremism and the Dems have drifted from democratic socialism to become what most considered moderates 70 years ago.
This is definitely true on economic questions (unions, gov spending, safety net, taxation, etc.). Because it was hugely popular, the New Deal set the foundations of US economic policy from FDR-Nixon. The country (and a lot of Western Europe) moved right beginning really with Reagan, but also continuing through Carter, Clinton, and Obama. Laissez-faire economics came back into vogue and ended up having the same effects it did during the Gilded Age, a lot of poverty and suffering, and a lot of discontent with the political status quo. The newly rising left says to blame the wealthy, corporations, and the economic/political system that allows them to rig the economy to their benefit. Trump says to blame immigrants and campus feminism and your nephew who tells you you can't say stuff is gay anymore.
I think a lot of these new Democrats (Omar, AOC, Tlaib, and the presidential candidates moving left) are really trying to move the country's economic foundations back to the New Deal consensus and away from the neoliberal consensus. This is viewed as radical because, in comparison with Obama's or Clinton's platforms, it is! But so was the New Deal a radical break from the Gilded Age Laissez-faire corporate economics that led to the Great Depression.
My big hope is that, when faced with massive crises (global warming, bloated healthcare costs and the scourge of preventable death in our health system, student loan debt, etc.) and big, bold policy proposals (Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and tuition free public college) people will quit asking "Is this radically different? Will this result in a political backlash" and instead start asking "Is this policy proposal adequate to respond to the crises we face? Does the scale of the proposed solutions offered match the scale of the problems we face?"