From what I have been seeing in my local papers the younger people have no idea what the Democratic Party used to be like. They seem to think it was always Ultra Liberal and that the Republican party was always Ultra Conservative. One guy even repeatedly said that FDR, HST, and HHH (Humphrey) were "liberals"! And my father, a union bigshot HATED Liberals yet liked those guys. So here are some notes:

Both parties were closer to middle of the road in the mid 20th Century.

The Democratic Party had liberals but it also had the working class which was Populist and it had the southern Democrats who were quite conservative. So they had to keep this coalition together to win so they had to be moderate.

The Republicans repeatedly got so badly defeated while running against FDR (and then HST) that they had to move to the middle to have any chance of winning. Every candidate they ran from 1940 until 1960 was 'middle of the road'

The Democratic Party (under various names) from 1796 to the 1890s was a Libertarian Party. Then came William Jennings Bryan and the DP was a Farmers' Populist party for a while. But it then went back to being Libertarian until 1928 when Al Smith became the candidate for president. The working class Populists then were the biggest force in it from 1928 until 1968! There were only two Liberals running for President for the Democratic Party from 1796 until 1972. They were Adlai Stevenson in 1952 1nd 1956 and Geroge McGovern in 1972. They both got slaughtered as the working class hated Liberals and then voted Republican.

But in 1968 the working class vote was split between Nixon, Humphrey, and Wallace as all three went mainly after that group. Between 1968 and 1972 the Hardhats (WWII vets) fought with their sons (Hippies) over control of the Democratic Party and the Hippies won. That drove out the Working Class who hated Liberalism as well as the Southern Democrats. The Democratic Party then changed from being twice the size of the Republican Party to being a bit smaller.

Workers now have the nightmare of having to choose between two parties who both hate white male working class people.