How the Democrats got to be the way they are

by: John Emerson

Sat Jun 19, 2010 at 15:13

(More history from John Emerson - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)

The Democratic Party established itself in more or less its present form roughly between 1945 and 1955. The Civil Rights and anti-war movements of the sixties severely challenged the new party orthodoxy, but after 1972 (when many of the pros abandoned McGovern) the old guard took over again. The DLC takeover in 1988 moved the party still further to the right, but the foundations for an anti-populist, anti-progressive Democratic Party were laid immediately after WWII.

The New Coalition

A couple of weeks ago I described how the congressional progressives had at first been the New Deal's biggest supporters, but went into opposition after 1937, so that the New Deal coalition was replaced by the old Grover Cleveland Democratic Party (the South and the urban machines) plus the unions. After 1937 the impending world war (which most Progressives opposed) increasingly dominated politics, and once the war had begun it trumped all domestic concerns, so that the Congressional role became rather limited and the progressives were marginalized.