Backlash

Before my time, but often people have communicated to me that a generation of "Left-leaning" Smart Young Men From The Right Schools' basic view of the 60s was, "We woulda won if not for the women and the gays and the blacks and the anti-war movement."

You know, the type of people who still raged about McGovern 35 years later.

One wonders precisely what "we" would have won with that non-coalition. I guess with the right people in power (them) in a Scoop Jackson administration, a few paternalistic blessings would have been granted, and since that was more than what Republicans would have been offering, no one should have demanded anything more.

Instead they spent decades demanding ever more conservative democratic presidential candidates, while instantly declaring them to be too liberal whether they lost (Dukakis) or won (Carter, Clinton). Fomenting backlash politics at outlets like The (old) New Republic while claiming, often, to merely be giving voice to The Silent Majority that had so enraged them back when they were Tricky Dick's.

"If everyone else would just shut up, the smart boys from Harvard can tell you how to appeal to the people at Ohio diners. Probably with science provided by Mark Penn!"

Good thing it's obvious, now, how ridiculous that all is!