> > Perry Bacon >> March 9, 2026 >> The New Republic >> <https://newrepublic.com/article/207435/moderate-democratic-voters-economic-populism> >> >> - >> >> <https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A//portside.org/2026-03-09/moderate-democrats-aint-what-they-used-be> >> - >> >> <?body=%0A%E2%80%98Moderate%E2%80%99%20Democrats%20Ain%E2%80%99t%20What%20They%20Used%20To%20Be%0Ahttps%3A//portside.org/2026-03-09/moderate-democrats-aint-what-they-used-be&subject=%E2%80%98Moderate%E2%80%99%20Democrats%20Ain%E2%80%99t%20What%20They%20Used%20To%20Be&utm_source=portside-general&utm_medium=email> >> - >> >> <https://portside.org/node/39153/printable/print?utm_source=portside-general&utm_medium=email> >> >> * Moderate voters are not like the people who purport to speak for them. >> And that’s crucial for Democratic candidates and strategists, as well as >> journalists, to understand. They're not looking for a nominee with a >> Republican-lite platform.* >> > My 2 cents - The base of the party has long been to the left of the leadership. My question is - if a moderate gets the nomination, does the left continue to capitulate to lesser evilism, put their beliefs on a shelf, hold its breath, and support another Clinton/Obama/Biden? And if that happens and that candidate wins and goes on to disappoint the base, do they stay home for the next election and allow Trump II to win? Or does the victory of a moderate nominee encourage a realignment of US politics by abandoning this party and creating a new one, a party that would reach out to the many independents as well as those former Dem voters who went with Trump out of hatred for the Clinton/Obama politics of neoliberal economics, outsourcing of jobs, and a blank check of support to genocidal Israel? If so, this would be a replay of 1854 and the abandonment by the left wing of the Whigs and its policy of "moderation" and concilliation to the pro-slavery Dems, and the creation of a new party that would not be afraid to take on slavery - the Republicans. This new party took power just 6 years later, and 5 years afterwards, led a victorious war to destroy slavery once and for all - something the Whigs could only talk about for decades!
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