Flip Flopping, and Lurching Towards Progress

I LIVE IN a part of the United Sates which because of Abraham Lincoln was for one hundred years solidly democratic, and for the past fifty years because of Lyndon Johnson has been and remains solidly republican. Go figure. Wisdom in reverse. Entrenched idiocy. I know people who are old enough to be staunch conservative republicans who were once staunch southern conservative democrats. They fled the democratic party when Johnson signed the civil rights bill of 1964, just as their ancestors fled the Republican party when Lincoln freed the slaves. Racism in action. They all believe now that the Democratic party simply isn't what it used to be, that it has moved horribly to the left, become a socialist party, gone badly astray. That, of course, is nonsense. True, the southern conservative racist left the democrats and became republicans, which they are today, which moved teh democrats a bit to the left overall, but generally the democratic party, like the republican party, has moved to the right over the past few decades, the republicans extremely so. In the nineteen thirties the democrats nominated and elected a democratic socialist, Franklin Roosevelt, far to the left of any current democrat. In the nineteen sixties, democrat political leaders included Hubert Humphrey, Ted Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, George McGovern, and Edmund Muskie, all far to the left of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or Joe Biden. Ronald Reagan ushered in a hard right trend for the Republicans, far more right wing than nelson Rockefeller of Richard Nixon in the nineteen sixties. The Republican now threatens to run itself right off a right wing cliff, as America seems to be beginning a move back to the left, with the millennials a much more progressive generation, coming to power. The progressive wing of the democrats is resurgent, with Bernie Sanders one example of this. The conservative era, begun under Reagan, may be ending, a a new progressive era dawning. We can only hope.