(Photo by David Hume Kennerly)
This summer marks 30 years since President Bill Clinton signed the landmark 1996 welfare reform into law. His successors in today’s Democratic Party will commemorate the event by repudiating everything that welfare reform symbolized. The party increasingly belongs to hardline socialists who promise universal benefits, unconditional cash, and higher taxes on “the rich” to pay for it all.
The leftward drift is measurable. New Manhattan Institute polling finds that 49% of left-leaning voters identify more closely with democratic socialists than traditional liberals. That includes 67% of those under age 35.
But momentum inside the Democratic coalition should not be mistaken for momentum with the American public. Manhattan Institute’s polling shows that Clintonian politics — championing work, public order, and mainstream values — remains a winning formula for the Left, the Right, or whoever decides to seize the opportunity.
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Jesse Arm is the vice president of external affairs at the Manhattan Institute. Sean Speer is a technical writer at the Manhattan Institute. This piece is adapted from City Journal.