Old party brass and new guard socialists agree: Democrats can’t afford to ignore their identity crisis any longer. After the 2016 upset, they’re overdue for a vision quest.
But if recent polling is any indication, the future Party of Jefferson won’t be moving to the middle anytime soon.
Democrats are flocking to the liberal label more than ever. Across all demographic and geographic groups, 44 percent of Democrats have taken the label according to new polling by Gallup. That’s a 14 percent increase since 2001.
The Democratic Party of today looks much different than the one that put Al Gore at the top of the ticket at the turn of the century. Back then the former vice president wanted to ramp up the war on drugs, keep gay marriage illegal, and impose the most modest restrictions on abortion. Supporting any of those now would get a Democrat blacklisted from the DNC.
Clearly official policy has reflected that shift in public opinion. Headlined by the likes of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, Democrats’ presidential platform affirmed abortion on demand and fronted softcore socialism. But that doesn’t mean the next party chairman should cancel a wilderness retreat.
A quick review of last November shows as much. Legalized weed and gay marriage might play well on the coasts with the younger demographic but they won’t win over voters in the middle. Clinton got clobbered among blue-collar voters who were more concerned with their employment than her party’s vision for social justice.
The current lurch to the left makes holding onto the base that much more difficult and introspection that much more necessary.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
