What is the definition of a mainstream Democrat?  How does the average Democrat voter look and act?  What distinguishes the modern "mainstream" Democrat from an independent or a Republican?  These are not rhetorical questions.  I honestly have no idea.

Former Democratic Michigan governor James Blanchard said this: "The Reagan Democrats before that were really Wallace Democrats, to be blunt about it.  The national press has never quite explained that, but the county has changed a lot.  It's not as conservative Democratic as it used to be.  It's much more open now to mainstream Democrats now, but you have to work for it."

Get it?  George Wallace (Democrat governor from Alabama) was a racist who opposed the racial integration of public schools.  If the same voters support Ronald Reagan, he must be the candidate only a racist would vote for!  Hence Hillary Clinton's characterization of half of Donald Trump's voters as belonging in a "basket of deplorables," meaning they were racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, or Islamophobic — in other words, every inflammatory, demonizing label that can be applied to the ideological opposition to the Democratic Party.

Except, you might say, the Democratic Party was the party that supported slavery, and Republicans were the abolitionists, right?  The Democratic Party gave us Jim Crow laws and the KKK, not the GOP.  Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican.  Lester Maddox and Bull Connor were Democrats.  Historically speaking, the Democratic Party has obviously been a safe haven for racism, bigotry, and fomenters of divisions between Americans in an eternal quest for political power by any means necessary.  Conversely, Republicans have traditionally supported a strong but limited federal government.  Democrats wanted to secede from the Union that a bloody and expensive Civil War was fought to preserve.

So when exactly did this cosmic shift in attitudes toward race occur, exactly?  According to liberals, the correct answer to that question is 1964, when "Dixiecrat" Senator Strom Thurmond switched parties from Democrat to Republican, even though senator and former Exalted Cyclops of the KKK Robert "Sheets" Byrd remained a Democrat until his death in 2010.  Please remember that as recently as 2009, Robert Byrd was caught on camera using the N-word in a clearly negative and derogatory context (as opposed to the allegedly friendlier version used by rappers that ends with an "a" instead of "er"), and, presumably, he was given a pass because he was a very old man about to die when the interview was recorded.  He put the word "white" in front of the term as a qualifier that implied that the N-word was race-independent and said more about a person's low character than the color of his skin.

Bernie Sanders identifies himself as a "Democratic Socialist" (think lipstick on a pig) , but in reality, he's just a regular old garden-variety socialist and maybe even a communist.  However one chooses to describe Sanders, he is most emphatically not a "mainstream" Democrat — yet in two consecutive presidential elections, Bernie attracted the largest crowds of any of the Democratic contenders and seemed to be running away with the nomination before the party apparatus apparently intervened to install its preferred candidate, which was Hillary Clinton in 2016 and now Joe Biden this year.  This means that in two consecutive presidential elections, a candidate less popular with voters than Sanders will be asked to defeat Donald Trump in the general election.  It's probably a good thing that Joe Biden struggles to draw more than a dozen people to a campaign event because he's good for at least one embarrassing gaffe per day.  If he isn't mangling the English language, he's threatening to punch or slap somebody, he's calling people names, or he's challenging someone to a pushup contest.

Let's be brutally honest here: Joe Biden is a pathetic, senile old man carrying more baggage than a busy bellhop at a five-star hotel in Manhattan.  He's an acknowledged plagiarist with a history of serious health issues.  And he's corrupt — not only does Joe have an albatross named Hunter that's about 175 pounds of embarrassment hanging around his neck, but he's got a little brother named James with some pretty serious legal problems of his own that appear to result from questionable business dealings made by trading on the family name.  

Between Hunter at Burisma and James at Americore, where his famous last name allegedly opened doors for him, Joe has plenty to worry about, or he would if the media had any interest in giving him the same degree of scrutiny they give Donald Trump every day.  Never fear, though.  Even if the media refuse to do their job, Donald Trump will do it for them.

Donald Trump is often described as "deranged" or "incompetent" by his persistent critics, but those people clearly haven't watched POTUS give a speech now that the impeachment farce is behind him.  Trump looks relaxed and comfortable in his own skin.  Frankly, Biden more closely resembles those harsh descriptions of Trump.  It's difficult to imagine a scenario where Joe Biden emerges the victor of any verbal jousts with the Jedi master himself.

What have we learned so far?  Mainstream Democrats don't want to be called socialists.  Does that mean they are capitalists?  I guess we'll have to wait and see what these "mainstream" Democrats put in their party's platform.  Even though Democrats don't seem to be promising their voters anything except that their nominee won't be named Donald Trump, we can discern what a majority of Democrats apparently support based on legislation and policy initiatives they've supported in recent years, including these listed below:

Pro-Abortion: Using clever euphemisms such as "a woman's right to choose" and "reproductive rights," Democrats now support the right of a mother to terminate the life of her child even after birth, according to Democrat Virginia governor Ralph Northam.  

Pro-Union: Unions support Democrat politicians, and in return, Democrats are always trying to increase the minimum wage — not because they actually care about people earning minimum wage nearly as much as they care about union wages tied to the minimum wage.  In essence, the minimum wage issue is a classic quid pro quo — donate to Democrats and vote for them, and in return, they will forever be pushing to increase the minimum wage.

Higher Taxes: Democrats believe that everybody else should be paying higher taxes.  Democrats like Bill Clinton and Warren Buffett love to complain that they don't pay enough in taxes, yet they don't voluntarily write checks to the IRS to pay more — they simply complain to virtue-signal to the general public.  The reason Democrats have an insatiable greed for tax dollars is because they want to buy votes through the redistribution of wealth.

American Thinker's own Monica Showalter recently exposed the blatant hypocrisy of liberal "mainstream" Democrats like Laurene Jobs, who sincerely believes it's wrong for people who actually work and earn income to accumulate wealth but perfectly acceptable for her to inherit obscene wealth from her late husband without estate taxes confiscating most of it.  Punitive taxes are supposed to be paid by everybody else, not liberals personally.

Redistribution of Wealth: Bernie Sanders doesn't even believe in charity, but most Democrats seem to prefer the idea of the government confiscating and redistributing wealth earned in the private sector to relying on donations to charity, probably because it's more difficult to defraud a small charity than it is to defraud the federal government.

Hatred of Rich People: Democrats excel at identity politics.  Bernie Sanders laments the fact that billionaires exist in America — he used to also lament millionaires before he became one himself.  Democrats demonize the "evil rich," but, strangely enough, they seem to care about punishing only conservative billionaires.

Grievance Politics: Democrats like to portray their Republican counterparts as racist, redneck white conservatives.  Black conservatives are all called names like "Uncle Tom" and labeled race traitors.  The Democratic Party is one giant coalition of special interests with no common denominators — Black Lives Matter and Antifa don't share the same agenda.  The former cares only about demonizing the police and fomenting racial tensions, and the latter group are simply a bunch of anarchists who demand that socialism be implemented by any means necessary.

Mainstream Democrats are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites.  When Donald Trump gets mad at a critic making unfair and untrue accusations against him, he's labeled "deranged" and accused of being unfit for office.  When Joe Biden loses his mind because a union worker asked a legitimate question about his policy on confiscating guns in violation of 2nd Amendment rights (which Beto O'Rourke has insisted he will do as Biden's gun czar or whatever appointment he's supposed to get), the very same people celebrate his efforts and proclaim he's showing himself ready for the challenge of serving as our next president.

The Democratic Party has no positive messages to offer voters in November.  The only thing Democrat voters appear to have in common is their intense, irrational hatred for President Donald Trump.  What they lack is a coherent platform and any good reasons to vote for Joe Biden.

John Leonard writes novels, books, and articles and blog posts for American Thinker.  You may find him on Facebook or his website at southernprose.com.  His books are available here.