Great essay written by a billionaire Dem

[JHan]

75. It was FDR who established free trade policy.

It was part of the "Liberal Order", just look at United Fruit.

Dominance through Trade was very much a liberal position, embraced by FDR and Democrats. It was Republicans who were protectionist, only seeing the value of Free Trade Policy under Eisenhower. Free trade policy further expanded by following Presidents who felt that trade agreements were a pathway to diplomacy..

And the critique of free trade ( which i accept is not always "free" but based on the prejudicial whims of those with greater leverage) is conflated with corporate greed - which got its impetus under Reagan and domestic policy which ignores the value of "the commons" . These again are republican ideals which boils down everything to competition between individuals, not the social contract.

was Clinton shortsighted on derivatives? Yes. But again, he did not have success implementing more progressive policies during his tenure because he faced well-heeled, well-funded opposition. That was the political reality of having to govern in less than ideal circumstances. In some ways it was the same for Obama except Obama had greater success - at least where the ACA was concerned.

I repeat: to assume there was a rightward shift suggests there was some leftist golden age Dems moved away from. This is simply not true or a gross simplication. And anyone looking at what Obama managed to do , despite Republican obstruction, and still claim it is in any way rightward - from establishing a Consumer Protection Board, to the ACA, to wanting increases in wages and other progressive policies which died because of filibustering by Republicans, is just choosing to ignore bits of history.

"The assertion and original point of contention is that the party hasn't shifted to the right over the decades with respect to majority voting population"

the only way policy gets voted on is if a party has the legislative power to do it which is given to them by voters. We can only look at what the voting tells us and polling. The rest is sophistry - like people assuming that non-voters would be liberal or leftist if only we crafted a special message to them. Voters are often irrational and don't know what they don't know.

Chris Hayes wrote about this, referencing his experience canvassing for John Kerry in 2004:

Undecided voters aren't as rational as you think. Members of the political class may disparage undecided voters, but we at least tend to impute to them a basic rationality. We're giving them too much credit. I met voters who told me they were voting for Bush, but who named their most important issue as the environment. One man told me he voted for Bush in 2000 because he thought that with Cheney, an oilman, on the ticket, the administration would finally be able to make us independent from foreign oil. A colleague spoke to a voter who had been a big Howard Dean fan, but had switched to supporting Bush after Dean lost the nomination. After half an hour in the man's house, she still couldn't make sense of his decision. Then there was the woman who called our office a few weeks before the election to tell us that though she had signed up to volunteer for Kerry she had now decided to back Bush. Why? Because the president supported stem cell research. The office became quiet as we all stopped what we were doing to listen to one of our fellow organizers try, nobly, to disabuse her of this notion. Despite having the facts on her side, the organizer didn't have much luck.

https://chrishayes.org/articles/decision-makers/