Could you please elaborate as to what "redistribution" means in this context?
The obvious thing: the redistribution of wealth. Of course you won't find many instances of it being put quite like that, but the idea that the Democratic Party represented a transfer of money from (did it ever matter who from?) to people like them was at the core of hillbilly support for the party from the New Deal until things went to sh!t in recent decades. What sort of Democratic politician was particularly popular in such places once upon a time? People like Robert Byrd and Carl D. Perkins. Says it all, right? People don't consistently vote for one political party for a long time purely out of deference to tradition, they do it because that party is seen as standing for (even if very imperfectly) their interests.
Word.
I expect better from you, Al. You do know that the Medicaid expansion in the ACA is the single largest piece of wealth redistribution passed since the Great Society? It's certainly true the that the Democratic party is excessively timid about trumpeting that fact, and perhaps maybe they should be messaging things better, but it is beyond a shadow of a doubt true that they are still the party of redistribution, compared both to the status quo and to the Republicans.
