538: Our Way-Too-Early 2020 Democratic Primary Draft

[Hortensis]

25. Agree 100% about getting Democrats in power.

I do feel that most Democrats are generally the type we want and would show it in a congress controlled by solid Democratic majorities. Most young voters have literally never seen that, born after the New Deal era that ended around 1978.

For that matter, none of us have in the sense that all through the Democratic-dominated progressive era from the 1930s through the 1970s, the Democratic Party had a lot more conservatives, especially strong southern conservatives, who are now united with other conservatives, causing huge troubles, in the Republican Party. Overall, the Democratic caucuses have never been so liberal as now. People don't know it, though. Yet.

From hanging around here it's hard not to suspect these experts are overestimating Sanders' continued appeal. He's still the capital-P progressive leader, but increasingly less often mentioned, both on this forum and, notably, on the websites of different P-rogressive groups that have split off, which barely mention him, if at all, on their main pages.

My impression is that his 2016 followers are increasingly ready for another leader. I would support a competent, big-thinking, inclusive, liberal progressive whose plans were ambitious enough to appeal to them, but I'm concerned that a very different sort of iconoclast could harness the negative mood in these angry, worried times. Or just a no-go, third party splitter. We'll see.