In 1985, a non-profit corporation called the Democratic Leadership Council was founded with the intention of reeling back the leftward shift that the Democratic party experienced from the 60s through the 80s. They believed in championing the center-left’s social progress, but also in switching to center-right economic policies.

When Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992, they toted him as evidence that a socially-progressive but economically-conservative candidate could be viable. Championed as the “first black president,” Clinton exploded the prison industrial complex and passed NAFTA, both of which undermined the worker. The Miller Center at UVA, discussing his legacy, first mentions this:

Clinton managed to remake the image and operations of the Democratic Party in ways that effectively undermined the so-called Reagan Revolution. His “New Democrat” Party co-opted the Reagan appeal to law and order, individualism, and welfare reform, and made the party more attractive to white middle-class Americans.

Campaign Materials

There is no shortage of think-pieces explaining that Ralph Nader was to blame for Al Gore’s loss to George W. Bush in 2000. He didn’t concede the left wing vote to Gore, and ended up earning more of it than the total difference in votes between Gore and Bush in Florida. This meant, to some, that Nader’s 97k votes were siphoned from Gore, and that this failure of the Democrats to win was his fault, despite the 200k registered Democrats that voted for Bush or the dubious way Florida handled vote recounting.

Should Nader voters have bitten the bullet and voted for Gore? It depends what their primary issues were. If voters were pro-NAFTA, Gore was their guy. If voters were pro-equal-marriage, despite it being unpopular at the time, Nader was their guy. If voters were pro-environment, despite the PR efforts to provoke recall of Gore as the vanguard of environmental policy, their records at the time spoke for themselves.

Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in 2016 is still pinned by many on Bernie Sanders, regardless of the fact he did not run in the general election, and that he spoke at 39 Clinton rallies in the 3 months leading up to the general. The fault is shifted, then, to his voters, who are accused of being unreasonable for not wanting to choose between the two least liked candidates in American political history.

Often not fingered for Trump’s win were other instrumental factors in the 2016 election, such as Hillary’s team helping to elevate Trump using their media connections, and Hillary’s team, fully with full control of the DNC, rigged the primary against Bernie. Hillary’s entire strategy was to foment a Republican candidate so socially reprehensible that economic factors would become overshadowed, and voters would have no choice but to go with the “most experienced” candidate, over the pie-in-the-sky socialist, who more closely resembled the pre-80s Democratic party than any of our presidents since.