As opposition to Donald Trump’s autocratic regime has intensified — with a majority of Americans now seeing him as a dictator — it’s been widely noted that the most important difference between elected Democrats isn’t whether they’re “progressive” or “moderate,” but whether they’re willing to fight.
But behind these two distinctions there’s a more important one, the distinction between present-oriented and future-oriented behavior, which provides insight into the Democrats’ longstanding problems and how conservative Republicans have exploited them for decades — a dynamic that ultimately brought us Trump.
