Mann And Ornstein: Five Myths About Bipartisanship

These are, so far as I can tell, arguments they've been making for years now, and props to them for their work.
I either tend to agree with or could probably be persuaded of just about everything they say right up to the end. It's a little difficult for me to believe that the Pubs are that radical, and it's incredible to me that anyone could say that the contemporary Dems are a "traditional" "center-left" party. The Pubs have definitely tended to be way more conservative than I've been--have they really moved that far right of the traditional American center? Perhaps the move to extreme free-marketism could be what did it in their eyes. That's something of which I could be convinced anyway.
   But today's Dems are a "traditional" "center-left" party? I'm utterly baffled by that claim. They seem to be going on voting records--probably a significantly better indicator than Crazy-Left Twitter and the stuff that gets said in this primary... But that stuff can't really be left out...
   Look: just take an issue that I don't have much of an opinion on: abortion. It's easier for me to be objective about that. You basically can't be a Democrat if you don't advocate Constitutional protection of abortion on demand. Northam, for example, has defended what's been called "fourth-trimester" abortions. If anything, I tend to lean more Democrat on this one on general libertarian grounds. But it's extremely difficult for me to believe that this--significant as it is both objectively and for the Dems--is an indicator of a "traditional center-left" party. The equality act, which entails that men can become women and vice-versa for a variety of insane reasons--feeling that it's so, believing that it's so, dressing as if it's so--rejects observable, empirical facts, empirical lexicographical facts about English, and a central logico-metaphysical foundation of all reason: thinking so (in and of itself) doesn't make things so. (And I think Dems voted unanimously for the "equality act). I suppose the ideas of race-based and sex-based hiring, and that people should be evaluated morally on the basis of their sex and skin color are pretty traditional alright...so there's a couple of things. Socialism has a significant history in the U.S., so that seems ok to me... One could go on--but I wonder whether they're actually focusing on economic issues and, perhaps, using Europe--which has, of course, kinda lost its mind--as a touchstone...
   Anyway. Obviously my opinions on this don't really stack up well against actual research.