problem: MOST Democrats in the past were center-Left. Now the country as a whole was center-Right But even so, the center-Left became the famous “Reagan Democrats.” The “gap” was not so big that they couldn’t easily jump from one side to the other. And many of us did!
But things are different now. The Democrat party has gotten more and more extreme, now functionally losing the center-Left.
I mean, Donald Trump was a Democrat! So was Ronald Reagan and Elon Musk and Tulsi Gabbard and… MANY movers and shakers in the Republican party once affiliated themselves with the Democrats.
See, center-Left back then was not so distant from the mainstream that one would even notice. Your fishing buddy might be center-Left and it just makes no never-mind! One might even “cross over” and vote for a candidate from the “other” party because that is the best thing to do! And identity did not change one bit–the “gap” wasn’t big enough to force an identity threat.
BUT, things have shifted over the past 40 years. Many of us are still center-Right. But the Democrat party as a whole has moved from being center-Left to being decidedly Left of center. And it’s a big shift.
Many who were once center-Left have now moved to Left of center and will no longer even tolerate even having a friend who is center-Right! People are settling and even moving to places that better fit with their political philosophy, thus hardening the “Lefty bubble.”
And it’s natural that there is a dividing of the people. We have seen it many times in history. Birds of a feather and all that… And we are seeing such a separation play out now.
But the important thing to understand is that the Democrat party has shifted from being center-Left to being decidedly Left of center. And for a lot of people, that is just not tolerable and they are more comfortable now in a center-Right Republican party.
And that is seen by the fact that more Americans now identify as Republicans than Democrats. This last election was R+4! And so, Donald Trump, the former Democrat, was elected for a second term. In a landslide.