There have been many changes in America’s political system in the last decade or so, but some things are perennial. If you would have told me in August 2015 that we would be in the middle of Donald Trump’s second term, in which he’s slapping his name on buildings all over Washington, building monuments to himself and declaring that the country is under attack by communists, I would have laughed out loud. But if you had told me instead that the media would be framing the upcoming midterm elections as a referendum on the Democrats going too far left and alienating the rock-ribbed Americans who matter, I would have shrugged and said, “What else is new?”
If there is one thing we have been able to count on for the last 30 years, if not longer, it is that it doesn’t matter how extreme the right wing might become or how far down the conspiratorial rabbit hole they go. The media interprets all political events in this polarized environment as validation of the belief that conservatives are always more in touch with Real America, and therefore more deserving of positions of leadership. According to this thesis, if Democrats want to win power, they will have to radically change their positions.
