Thomas Edsall has an interesting column in the NY Times today. The jumping off point is the idea that Democrats lost this election at least partly because the party has moved too far left on social issues for most voters. To make this point, he quotes an analysis in the Financial Times.
Data suggests the Democrats lost ground with moderates, while holding steady among progressives. Charges that racism propelled voters to Donald Trump are at odds with the rightward swing among Black and Hispanic voters, and with a raft of data showing that racial prejudice is in steady decline among Americans of all political stripes.
Instead, the data shows Democrats taking a sharp turn leftward on social issues over the past decade. This has distanced them from the median voter, just as Wright’s cartoon depicted. We see this not only in Democratic voters’ self-reported…
