Democrats' Move to the Right Profoundly Affects our Young People and Our Future.

[HereSince1628]

17. As a boomer living in WI, I often feel the earth has shifted beneath my feet...

like one of those powered sidewalks in airports. It's taken me to a place that seems and probably is very unlike the country I was raised in.

BUT, I see the history that surrounded my life a bit differently, often with the worst turns of events lagging far behind the early signs of trouble.

It's undoubtedly true that the Reagan administration marks a time when the backlash against progressive policies was very well underway and openly discernible.

American manufacturing and desperate to develop local governments in the south had been at work for decades--aggressively shifting the geography, and power, of American economics...since the 1950's decades. Subtle changes like the need for nearby parking for a now ubiquitous and growing fleet of private family cars had big box department store chains like K-Mart murdering retailers in small town businesses.

By the 70's the shift in economic power was taking hold, resentment against changes in civil rights, the anti-movements against women's rights and the environment, a sense of US failure in Vietnam, and the humiliation of the Embassy hostages, and perhaps most importantly resentment against a post-war period characterized not by expansion but by economic stagnation really created the stage on which the Reagan administration played.

The bankruptcy crisis of New York, the abandonment of northern steel manufacturing, the resurgence of Atlanta, blossoming of "the" Research Triangle etc were already historic events when Reagan's administration started pushing Laffer curves to explain them.

The changes since Reagan, largely are reactions to reactions. Reactions based on attitudes and stories about labor and 'what killed' northern cities. You know those attitudes that grew like rust on purposefully abandoned buildings and equipment left for someone else to clean up by the capitalists' in pursuit of profit.

It's true that the DLC and 3rd Way democrats came to adopt those attitudes as inevitable truths. But you know, like contemporary politicians of all ilks, they mostly negotiated life trying to keep the buttered side of their bread from falling face down on the floor.

If this disillusions a generation and dissuades them from a path of supporting such politicians, there is yet space for hope.