>I don't know how old you were in the '50s, but I was there.
>Certainly things have gone downhill somewhat since then, but there
>have also been many "material improvements."
No! No!!!! Everything sucks and is getting worse!!!!!
I've been reading Jeffrey Stonecash's book on class and party in American politics, and he's got some great stuff in there about the politics of the 1950s that, I'm sad to say, supports some of Nathan's points about the Dems. The DP was hardly very "liberal" in the 1950s. A major chunk of its Congressional representation came from the South - poor districts in the South where black people weren't allowed to vote and poor white people didn't vote, meaning they were elected by affluent racist reactionaries. On most policy issues there was little difference between Reps and non-Southern Dems. What's changed really in the last 30 years is that the Reps moved far to the right. There's more difference between D and R now than there was 40-50 years ago.
It's not easy for me to say this, since I used to believe quite the opposite.
Doug