Has the Democratic Party moved to the left over the last 30 years & if so, do you see this development in a favorable or unfavorable light?

@JonLosAngeles66 Could you name some policy issues where you’ve diagnosed that bipartisan trend?

@JonLosAngeles66 Democrats shifted to the Right under Clinton, but started moving back to the Left under Biden.

@BohemianBabe Alright! That‘s a statement. Would you like to explain why you think that is, whether you approve of it and where it becomes apparent in policy terms?

@CedricH Well, I can give the short version. The full version would be super long, since we're talking about change over the course of decades.

Basically, the right-wing media machine, especially talk radio, convinced the public that the Democrats had the same policies of the Soviet Union. In order to counter this, Democrats moved to the Right on economics. It's why Bill Clinton infamously said "the era of big government is over" then continued the deregulations that Republicans started. On social issues, the Democrats didn't move to the Right, but they weren't really that progressive at the time any way. Clinton had "don't ask, don't tell" and that was considered progressive for the time. Most Democrats were against gay marriage, but were ok with civil unions. It wasn't really until towards the end of Obama's second term that Democrats started moving to the Left on social issues because they saw it was politically safe to do so.
Thanks to the internet, we now have a lot of independent left-wing media, which started the modern rise of Justice Democrats and the support for people like Bernie Sanders. Plus, Biden is legit very pro-union, which helped Democrats move back to the Left on economics.

It's a long... long story. The best way to sum it up is that Republicans are fascist lunatics completely controlled by rich sociopaths, while Democrats try to walk the line between serving the public and serving their rich donors. When the public is informed and active, we're able to push the Democrats to the Left.

As a Socialist, I'm happy to see the Democrats moving to the Left again, and I hope that independent media keeps people from being duped again, like they were during the Clinton years. Unfortunately, there's still tons of right-wing media, much of it funded by Russia, that purports to be independent. Plus, if Trump wins the next election and ends democracy, it's going to be a very different world.

Okay, so say you‘re a right-leaning Democrat who appreciated Clintonian positions or a moderate Republican who would support Reagan, Bush, Cheney, McCain or Romney wouldn’t you say these people are losing both parties simultaneously right now?

@CedricH The Democrats are still a pretty big tent party. Moderate Clintonites could probably still get elected depending on the region of the country. And it's not like Biden and Harris are super progressive. They're centrist Liberals who are to the Left of Clinton and Obama, but it's not like they're Social Democrats. They still oppose the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, Palestinians being alive, and many other progressive policies.
Now when it comes to the Republicans, they've gotten so extreme that people like Bush and Cheney actually are considered Moderates. So yeah, the Romney Republicans have totally lost control of the party.

@BohemianBabe Well, but if you‘re comfortable with being either a Romney Republican or a Clinton Democrat then would you say that you were better represented 20-30 years ago than today?

@CedricH If those were my politics, I'm sure that's how I'd feel.
TBH, I kinda feel that way now because as bad as the Republicans were, they weren't trying to end democracy before Trump.

@BohemianBabe The point I‘m trying to make is that if you were a centrist (or center-right) in the 1990s (by US political standards of that period) then you‘d find it rather chilly these days, correct? Because the influence of their views has receded on both parties simultaneously.

@CedricH Well I'd say the Democrats are mostly still Centrists. But sure, the Democrats went from being a party that was exclusively for Centrists to one that now has a centrist wing and a progressive wing. So sure, if I was a Centrist I wouldn't be thrilled.

@BohemianBabe Do you think it‘s possible the trend could reverse itself again? Meaning, Republicans going back to Romney-Reagan and Democrats finding back to Clinton-Gore-Lieberman?

@BohemianBabe So you‘re saying today‘s Democrat‘s are still made up of centrists and progressives.

But the question is, who‘s in charge of actually pushing policy in a certain direction? A party can push policies and these policies can be more moderate than the more „radical“ wing of the party wants them to be but they can still originate from that more radical wing.
Can you name any Biden policies that were actively passed for centrists while progressives would disagree with them? As I see it, and correct me if I‘m wrong, but the sole prerogative of centrists in today‘s Democratic Party is to moderate or block progressive proposals. That’s it.
That‘s not the same as actually getting any actual centrist policy action amounting to a solely centrist preference and which would, conversely, elicit some skepticism among progressives.

@CedricH
Of course. Corporate donors will always try to push both parties to the Right, especially when it comes to economics. That played a role in Bill Clinton embracing Ronald Reagan's policies too.
As for the Republicans going back, it's hard to say. If Trump loses, they'll have to rebrand, no question. But Trump isn't the only reason they've turned against democracy. The Republicans also lost the culture war, they have no policy positions that are popular with the voters. That's why they've tried to distance themselves from Project 2025. I think if Trump loses, they'll abandon Trumpism, as in they'll stop with the conspiracy theories, threats of violence, and general buffoonery. But will they embrace democracy again? Probably not.


Both the donors and the voters. Politicians need money, but they also need to win elections.


Pretty much. Like I said, Democrats generally walk the line of serving the donors and serving the voters. So if the voters want free healthcare, the centrist Democrats will give them the ACA. Centrists Democrats pretty much just water down what the Progressives want.


This is why I think it's important to differentiate between Centrists and Liberals. Centrists just want to maintain the status quo, whereas Liberals usually do want change, just not change that goes too hard against Capitalism. Centrist Democrats basically just create as little change as possible and hope that the voters and the donors will both be ok with it. While Liberals, who are still in the political Center, are more willing to make sweeping changes for the good of the country.

@BohemianBabe sorry, but that‘s a misleading definition of centrism. You can be a centrist such as Clinton and pass a lot of genuinely centrist reforms. He did more than just preserve the status quo. He actually pushed for certain policies himself. So what I want to know is if you agree that back in the day, centrists actually could see their own ideas being realized (as part of the Democratic coalition) and now they can only moderate the ideas of the progressive wing. Do you think that‘s accurate or not? I understand that you only favor left-leaning reforms but that doesn’t mean there aren’t also neoliberal reforms that centrists might want to get done.

@CedricH Clinton enacted laws that created as little change as possible. Like earlier I mentioned that he did "don't ask, don't tell" which I guess was fine for the time, but it's also basically how the military already was. Call it a compromise, but it was essentially the status quo.


Well back in the day, there was no progressive wing. The closest we had was what the voters wanted, which was usually to the Left of the Democratic Party. If I had to take a guess, I'd say the Democrats listened to the public, but then moderated what the people wanted based on what their donors were willing to put up with. And of course there were external forces that sometimes shifted what was possible, like with the rise of talk radio pushing Clinton to the Right on economics.

@BohemianBabe You seem pretty confident that „the people“ want left-leaning policy ideas. I wouldn’t be so sure and swing voters which are critical to the Democratic Party are even more fiscally conservative than the average Democratic voter.
In any case, you‘re validating my point, correct? Nowadays, centrist Democrats don’t get their own ideas through Congress or implemented by the executive. They merely moderate the ideas of the progressive wing? You‘ve dodged my question a little bit.

A few examples of ideas coming from the right-wing (centrist wing) of the Democratic coalition during the Clinton period would be spending cuts, agricultural subsidy reductions, trade liberalization, sectoral deregulation, a decrease in capital gains taxes, deficit reduction without massive tax increases, work requirements and stricter rules for welfare recipients.

I sure haven’t heard about any of that lately. So as someone who supports these policies, it‘s hard to say that the Democratic Party has anything to offer policy-wise on economic issues anymore.