Top 100 Mondale counties (1984, excluding D.C.)

[Intell]

The democrats of the 80's weren't socially conservative, and the republicans weren't radicals on social issues. The democrats were socially liberal, endorsed environmentalism, femenism, and were pro-choice, a more lenient approach to drugs, while the republicans were more socially conservative and all opposed all of the above mentioned things.

[Intell]

The democrats of the 80's weren't socially conservative, and the republicans weren't radicals on social issues. The democrats were socially liberal, endorsed environmentalism, femenism, and were pro-choice, a more lenient approach to drugs, while the republicans were more socially conservative and all opposed all of the above mentioned things.

If so, who were following Democratic senators and congressmen of 1980th?

Sen Howell Heflin (D- AL)
Rep. Bill Nichols (D-AL)
Rep. Richard Shelby (D-AL)
Rep. Martin Russo (D-IL)
Rep. William Lipinski (D-IL)
Rep. Frank Annunzio (D-IL)
Rep. Robert Borski (D-PA)
Rep. Joseph Kolter (D-PA)
Rep. Gus Yatron (D-PA)
Rep. John Murtha (D-PA)
Rep. Joseph Gaydos (D-PA)
Rep. Austin Murphy (D-PA)

And i intentionally limited myself to 3 states ONLY. In fact - i could add dozens (many dozens, really)  names of Democratic senators and congressmen of 1980th, who absolutely disagreed with your description - they were pro-life, mostly - anti-environment (many - pro-coal), anti-feminist and so on. Probably - a quarter of Democratic caucus of that time were like them or even more conservative (Sonny Montgomery, Marvin Leath, Charles Stenholm , Phil Gramm, Kent Hance and many other come to mind immediately)

This of relevance to the democratic party nationally and of Water Mondale. The democrats that were socially conservative were the minority. The democratic party of the time was socially liberal, as was Water Mondale, but many senators were socially conservative and would've still agreed with my characterisation of the democratic party as a liberal party.

[Intell]

The democrats of the 80's weren't socially conservative, and the republicans weren't radicals on social issues. The democrats were socially liberal, endorsed environmentalism, femenism, and were pro-choice, a more lenient approach to drugs, while the republicans were more socially conservative and all opposed all of the above mentioned things.

If so, who were following Democratic senators and congressmen of 1980th?

Sen Howell Heflin (D- AL)
Rep. Bill Nichols (D-AL)
Rep. Richard Shelby (D-AL)
Rep. Martin Russo (D-IL)
Rep. William Lipinski (D-IL)
Rep. Frank Annunzio (D-IL)
Rep. Robert Borski (D-PA)
Rep. Joseph Kolter (D-PA)
Rep. Gus Yatron (D-PA)
Rep. John Murtha (D-PA)
Rep. Joseph Gaydos (D-PA)
Rep. Austin Murphy (D-PA)

And i intentionally limited myself to 3 states ONLY. In fact - i could add dozens (many dozens, really)  names of Democratic senators and congressmen of 1980th, who absolutely disagreed with your description - they were pro-life, mostly - anti-environment (many - pro-coal), anti-feminist and so on. Probably - a quarter of Democratic caucus of that time were like them or even more conservative (Sonny Montgomery, Marvin Leath, Charles Stenholm , Phil Gramm, Kent Hance and many other come to mind immediately)

This of relevance to the democratic party nationally and of Water Mondale. The democrats that were socially conservative were the minority. The democratic party of the time was socially liberal, as was Water Mondale, but many senators were socially conservative and would've still agreed with my characterisation of the democratic party as a liberal party.

I don't know what is "a party as a whole", when it is, essentially, a "mix" of 50 state parties and adheres to "big tent" policy (as both Democrats and Republicans proclaimed in 1980th). In such situation any ideological characterization of party becomes nonsense. Sure, a majority of party (about 2/3) was liberal socially and so on So what? About 1/3 was socially conservative and had excellent representation on Congress, among governors and in state legislatures. Mississippi or Alabama Democratic parties liberal in 1980th? They would laugh in your face and they would be absolutely correct. Even NOW - vast majority of, say, Democtatic caucus in Louisiana legislature is adamantly pro-life, much more "pro-business" then "pro-environment", not feminist, and so on. Because such is an opinion of most of their voters. California Democratic party (and it's representatives in Congress) - more or less yes, but even there not all congressmen fit your description.... Of course if you consider presidential candidates ONLY, and look at party solely on basis of THEIR views - then you are correct. But, IMHO, it's an extreme oversimplification of general picture. A migration of a lot of "staunch working class Democrats" of the past to Trump in 2016 is another  proof of it. And these prople were Democrats for decades and generations. What common do they have with your party description? Almost nothing.

The democratic party, the national party was liberal, as were most of the democratic party outside the south. Now if you went to MS, AL, a lot of these areas only had democrats legislature due to old-school democrats conservative democrats still being prevalent, and even they would recognise the national party was conservative, and hence they didn't vote for them for president.

A long of these strong votes for the democrats, were based upon the working class.

Now the migration of the WWC to the republicans, is there any proof the WWC were by any means more socially conservative, at least than the middle class as a whole. Now these democrats voted for socially liberal presidents and in many cases senators (Western PA, WV, Eastern and Western KY, TN, Appalachian Counties of AL were all solidly democratic).

They voted for socially liberal candidates for presidents. The highest vote that McGovern got for president, were unionised counties in Knott County, KY and Elliot County. The vote for McGovern, was higher with a unionised workers, and then amongst then amongst the working class, this was especially the case with Dukakis and Mondale. There voters weren't pro-business.


Now the swing to the republican party, has been for a variety of reasons, a declining focus of the democrats on the WWC, gun Control, and a perception of culture of the democrats being culturally elitist and out of touch, when 20 years back it would have been the perception of the democrats being for the working man. This did not change with abortion being more mentioned and the democrats being more socially liberal, (the only issue to which this had affect would be Gun Control).

Even with the swing to the republicans amongst the working class, Obama was stronger amongst the WWV than other whites, and won whites making under 50k in 2008. These voters didn't switch to Trump because of abortion or SSM, but because of cultural issues (if you see that as social than so be it) such as nationalism, patriotism and identity, those values are what propelled Trump to win, along with economic anxiety and an increasing amount of people who are severely underemployed.

Social Issues are overrated as the reason for the swing, and outside the deep south, the democrats were more socially liberal relative to the republican party, and these working class areas voted for socially liberal presidents and senators.

The Mississipi democratic party might have been conservative, as might have been the AL, SC, TN, OK but other state democratic parties were either economically left-wing and to the left of the republicans on social issues or just social liberal in general. All these parties had an element of social liberalism as their platform.

[Intell]

^ Let's simply agree to disagree. You will stick to your arguments and they will be very convincing for you  (but - not for me) and vice versa.... I would simply say that all "ideological ratings" for so broad-based and heterogeneous parties, as Democratic and Republican were until 1990th at least, remind me an old russian anecdote about "median temperature in hospital".... Now, when BOTH parties became much more polarized and ideologized - another matter. And it became utterly boring.....

I really don't understand why the social conservatism of lower level democratic congressman, matters at all to these counties voting for solid left-wingers and social liberals, with Mondale and Dukakis. The democratic party nationally was socially liberal, and outside the deep south, generally had a socially liberal platform, and was generally more socially liberal than the republicans of a given state.

[Intell]

Hmmm... I don't think you can really call the Dems of 1984 socially conservative, though.  There was a socially conservative wing of the party up to the early 1960's, but it was mostly gone after 1968 and not particularly influential at the national level after 1933.

I'm fine with you saying that the Democrats didn't have a socially conservative wing in the 1980s, but then you also have to spare me the bullshlt that all of the old Southern Democrats were, in any meaningful way, "conservative," as it relates to modern conservatism.  Most Southern politicians, at the national level, were Democrats into the mid-'90s, after all.

And most of them were conservative.

[Intell]

Ok many members in the democratic party were conservative, that is true. However if we look at the overall social platform of the democratic party, they were liberal. This was also the case with most of the state democratic parties. Now the counties mentioned above, didn't abandon the democratic party, as they voted overwhelmingly for Mondale and Dukakis, and the top poster stated this;

"Looking at this list, one sees the problem the Democratic Party had adjusting to the political reality of the 1980s – when socially radical Boomers had a free-market party and a party of more or less socially conservative labor unionists to choose from."

This claim is false.