WASHINGTON — Charles Peters, the renowned Washington Monthly editor, is going on 91, does not get around very easily and was disgusted enough by President Trump’s address to Congress to let loose a few profanities in his gentle West Virginia drawl.

But Mr. Peters remains an optimist, believing that salvation is still possible if the country returns to the true faith of his New Deal youth.

“Maybe I’m old,” he said in an interview in his living room here last week, “but I’m forever hopeful about the Democratic Party.”

Mr. Peters has spent much of his life in and around politics. He was once a young state legislator who thought he wanted to be governor. Then he felt the tug to the nation’s capital, where he was one of the first executives of the Peace Corps.