"The hard left"... you know what is so damn comical about this statement?

[houston_radical]

14. Yes! You are correct (to state the obvious)

I think the core liberal values are:
- Human rights
- Social justice
- Economic fairness

Assuming these are correct, then the last "true" liberal president was LBJ (as you noted).

Since then the democratic presidents have drifted away from the left:

- Carter, although a fine man, deregulated everything in sight - the banks, airlines, rails etc.

- Clinton was basically an Eisenhower republican - NAFTA, so-called welfare reform, and don't forget repealing glass steagall

- Obama, although we love ACA (why not single payer?), has governed in the style of the DNC Clintons, spies on US citizens

If we think of the core (Goldwater) values of conservatives:
- Fiscal responsibility
- Avoid foreign entanglements
- "Stay out of my bedroom"

Then the last "true" conservative president we've had was Coolidge.

- Hoover - the great depression, hardly fiscally respondible

- Eisenhower (a Clinton-Obama-esque Centrist) - outspoken against the military-industrial complex, Civil Rights Act of 1957

- Nixon (a liberal by today's standards) - established OSHA, EPA & The Endangered Species Act, froze price and wages, outspoken in favor of affirmative action, went to USSR and China (Nixon wouldn't even qualify for democrat by today's standards!)

- Reagan, Bush Sr & Bush Jr, these guys are neocons, not conservative at all - spend money like crazy, love to invade other countries, and (at least Bush Jr) love to spy on us

So since Reagan, after Carter, conservatives have moved to the right as well.

Ok, I imagine that there might be some disagreement about the details here, but the overarching idea is that our entire political spectrum has been moving to the right since 1970s.