The dominant mode of thinking right now in the Democratic Party is that Hillary Clinton’s major political defect was that her agenda was far too milquetoast, too moderate, too inclined toward solutions that uphold the status quo and the market economy.
And regardless of your politics, there’s a compelling case to be made for this analysis. Young voters, a block Democrats are increasingly reliant on, are broadly speaking far to the left of the elders. A majority of them now reject capitalism entirely, an extraordinary development in a country where socialism has long been viewed as an essentially alien ideology.
It’s not just young voters, either: One 2016 poll showed that a majority of Democratic primary voters in every demographic group believed that socialism has a “positive impact on society.” Think tanks once synonymous with Clintonite centrist liberalism, such as the Center for American Progress, are now embracing radical agendas like “a large-scale, permanent program of public employment and infrastructure investment.”
Single payer has moved from an idea explicitly rejected by the Democratic nominee for president just last year to a major unifying belief for the party faithful.
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