Extremism is definitely on the rise in the Dem Party. That said, extremism is lags both in the public & in Congress & remains asymmetrical (stronger in the GOP). Keep in mind, GOP has suffered through a Civil War & the founding members of the party are now all ex-pats. Look at
this graph & you'll see a few things. 1st, before 2012 the American Dem Party was to the ideological right of the British Labor Party (liberal party) & both American parties were far to the right of the median American voter on policy preferences. The Dems began a platform
correction in 2012& then a total overhaul in 2016 that hauled the party all the way over to the left side of the spectrum AND to the left of the medium voter. BUT that does not change the fact that the party remains way closer to the median voter than the GOP does, which is WAY
to the right. What distorts this fact is the messaging posture of the parties. The Republicans message like their positions are centrist (even though quantitatively they are clearly not) and the Dems message like their positions are too extreme even though they better fit the
public's preferences. This is why when asked, voters report that Trump was more moderate than Clinton in 2016. Perception is all that matters and the GOP, from top to bottom, are master perception setters. Dem's on the other hand tend to adopt GOP frames about their own policies
(for ex: a staple line in 2020 for D candidates has become the line about taking away people's private health insurance- a line that originates from a Republican messaging shop. I should note, this is a structural, massive problem that Ds face, nothing that can be fixed within 1
cycle, but regardless of who the nominee is, if the Dem party continues to allow the GOP to "own" moderation erroneously, they will be hurt among the small (but existent) group of persuadables out there.
