An interesting piece by David Brooks about the trajectory of the Democratic Party and the dilemma of moderate democrats. The radical parts of their party are pulling them in a direction that cannot win in the fall. Read More at (Registerguard.com)
Here’s an excerpt:
I could never in a million years vote for Donald Trump. So my question to Democrats is: Will there be a candidate I can vote for?
According to a recent Gallup poll, 35% of Americans call themselves conservative, 35% call themselves moderate and 26% call themselves liberal. The candidates at the debates this week fall mostly within the 26%. The party seems to think it can win without any of the 35% of us in the moderate camp, the ones who actually delivered the 2018 midterm win.
The progressive narrative is dominating in part because progressives these days have a direct and forceful story to tell and no interest in compromising it.
The party is moving toward all sorts of positions that drive away moderates and make it more likely the nominee will be unelectable. And it’s doing it without too much dissent.
Finally, Democrats aren’t making the most compelling moral case against Donald Trump. They are good at pointing to Trump’s cruelties, especially toward immigrants. They are good at describing the ways he is homophobic and racist. But the rest of the moral case against Trump means hitting him from the right as well as the left.
A decent society rests on a bed of manners, habits, traditions and institutions. Trump is a disrupter.
The debates illustrate the dilemma for moderate Democrats. If they take on progressives they get squashed by the passionate intensity of the left. If they don’t, the party moves so far left that it can’t win in the fall.
Right now we’ve got two parties trying to make moderates homeless.
California Blue Dog 