FLASH POST: The Left and Democratic Party Should Reconcile and Regroup After the Last 50 Years

I found this article, which does a good job indirectly explaining how history makes sense of today's Democratic party after World War II and Vietnam War anti-war movement. The party has finally reached a point where it can reconcile after recovering from the dismembering the party took in the late '60s, '70s, and '80s.

In other words: this article tracks the rise of Neoliberalism from World War II and Vietnam Party to today through the eyes of the Democratic Party. I did this deep delving because I've been getting confused by claims that the Democratic Party is "more to the right than it was compared to so many years ago." Sadly, I can't agree so much with this statement on the domestic social and cultural level. The Democratic Party only shed most of the Southern Democrats something like 10-20 years ago (which doesn't feel that long ago to me).

Yeah, Clinton and Obama went Right when it came to economic policy. Culturally and socially, though, I feel like the activist Left on the ground has generally outpaced the Establishment rather than the social Overton Window having gone Left a fair amount then moved Right again for the Democratic Party. The cultural and social issues generally got swept under the rug like before the post-War push for Civil Rights by the Establishment from Eisenhower to Johnson (race and ethnicity) while other cultural issues like same-sex relationships being accepted sped forward justifiably to demand affirmation of humanity. We still have a distance to go on a societal basis, but many Left Activists and even mainstream society, to some degree, have come to accept many cultural and social issues faster than the Democratic Establishment

Overall, the Activist Left and the Democratic Establishment needs to reconcile their ideas and approaches then get back on track for the progress of ideals it pushed for the '60s while shedding the bad ideas like using neoliberalism to spread liberal values. Arguably, the Democratic Establishment has done some work to shed the illiberal aspects, like moving away from a Southern Democratic stance which contributed to false senses of bipartisanship between parties, but that moving has taken years to accomplish.

Now, however, the Democratic Party has an opportunity to get a hold of things, come together, and look to stand up for liberal stances (as much as the Democratic Party understands them) and even opening itself to Progressively Economic stances. Trump has definitely provided a shock to the system to push the Democratic party in this direction.

But Left, let's try to figure out how to work within this opportunity for reconciliation, regroup, and Progress the US to Liberalness in ways that we never thought that we could. Maybe through such a reconciliation, we can find ways to advocate and encourage Liberal values in the rest of the world without neoliberalism and forced hegemony. Instead we can use affirmation of humanity and identification with each other as humanity to improve the world.

Who's with me?

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