The base of the party became more oriented toward upper middle class professionals who had a socially liberal, more economically moderate outlook. And there's still a place in the party for people of color, and actually more opportunity after the 1960s, but the party's power becomes more rested in upper middle class politics.

Historian Lily Geismer explores the long transformation of the Democratic party from post-New Deal base of the working class to New Democrat client of the upper middle class, and explains how a generation of Democratic leaders abandoned regulation and redistribution for free market growth as an answer to all economic problems.

Lily is author of the article Atari Democrats in the newest Jacobin.