Bryan's an interesting case, all right. They should make a new movie about him. It would be quite a story, I should think.

I think most liberals and conservatives would find some things they liked about him and other things they did not.

pdq, my impression is that the vast majority of people in North America ARE White, Christian, and middle class. Most of the people I ever knew when I was growing up were (whether they took their Christianity very seriously, of course, was another matter, but they were nominally Christian in origin). Most of the people in Canada are. Nevertheless, Canada is a rather liberal place by USA standards, and a place with a socialist party that gets seats in every election.

I don't think FDR could possibly have been elected with a huge majority had he not had the support of a majority of White, Christian, middle class people. Therefore, I think your suggestion that he did not have a significant proportion of their support must be in error.

The reason the Democrats could not win most elections from 1860 to 1932 had its origins in the Civil War. In the election campaign of 1860 the traditional Democratic Party base tore itself apart over the issues of slavery and state's rights. It sundered into different parties with different leaders, and the Republicans, taking a strong anti-slavery stance, remained united, walked away with the election (because their vote was not divided between different coalitions, which the Democratic vote was).

The only place the Democrats had unquestioned support in after that disaster (for them) was in the South, and the South was going through reconstruction after the war and was always a minority voice in USA politics from then on. It took the Democrats a very long time to recover from those national events. They basically had to wait until the Republicans screwed up so badly as to totally ruin their chances with the electorate.

Something like that always happens eventually with any party that's in power too long. They screw up really badly at some point. And then the worm turns.

New England is mostly White, Christian, and middle class. Why have they been voting mostly for the Democrats for so long now?