Back in 2008, candidate Barack Obama said that marriage was "one man, one woman", that "no one's coming for your guns" and "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your insurance plan, you can keep your insurance plan.". By the end of his administration he had reversed all of these promises.
So what are we to make of the current crop of candidates? Various candidates have come out in favor of abolishing insurance companies entirely, making gun ownership difficult to impossible, "reforming capitalism" by partially taking control of all large corporations, abolishing ICE and presumably allowing open borders, incorporating illegal immigrants into Social Security, abolishing the Electoral Collage, reparations for slavery, and the Green New Deal which makes Mao's Great Leap Forward seem modest.
There are two possibilities. One is that they are in a bidding war to win the support of the activist wing of the Democratic Party and they will moderate their platform for the general election. The other is that they really are as radical as they sound and, while they might fail at their major goals, they will still push to fundamentally transform America far beyond anything President Obama imagined.
Is this electable? The assumption has been that President Trump is so far outside the norms and anyone can beat him. Since anyone can win, they reason, then they might as well shoot for the moon.
This will probably backfire. By pushing the limits of society so far, the Democrats are making Trump seem like the safe candidate. The current slate of candidates seems like they are auditioning for the reboot of the George McGovern campaign.
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