Democrats used to be the future-oriented party. What happened?

When the Democratic Party has been successful, it has often represented an optimistic, forward-looking view of America that embraced the future. Think of Franklin D. Roosevelt reassuring Americans in the depths of the Depression that they had nothing to fear but fear itself. Or John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier spirit as America aimed for the moon. The chorus of Bill Clinton’s campaign song was “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.” Barack Obama was unfailingly cool, promising a pluralistic new era of hope and change.

But somewhere in the past decade, Democrats seem to have lost that sensibility, and I wonder whether that has cost them politically.

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