Many Donk thinkers have been stating that this rush to the left is killing the party since the late 1980s.
There was never a national consensus on any pressing social issue since Civil Rights. The only changes imposed on American society since Roe v. Wade has been from above, either by courts, or the media elite. However, the only cultural transformations of any note were in the intellectual ghettoes of college towns and the large cities. Middle America remains in the middle, however increasingly radicallized and now an active participant in the national debate.
I am 34.
For some years prior to my birth, and up until 24 years after it, the DNC controlled the federal legislature, most state legislatures, and the entire judicial system.
During this period, the Left has stood for one thing above all else: Using the governemnt as a hammer to enact social engineering.
The rhetoric from the Left was all shiny-happy-kumbaya: If we tweak society this way or that, everyone will be happy and life will be great for everyone.
the results the common man has observe over this time period are quite different from the promise.
What we have seen is a decline in the health and tone of society, on the level of daily interactions.
Most of what the Left has done has resulted in an increase in government authority and invasiveness with no concommitant responsibility or accountability. It has resulted in making it ever more difficult to discipline our children, to hire the workers we choose, to fire workers who are inadequate, to enforce "the rules" of public conduct by which local civil societies prosper, to say what we think, to believe as we choose, to associate with whom we wish and shun those we wish to shun.
It is impossible to fail to observe that during this same interval: education scores declined, crime increased, civility in public went out the window, work-ethics dried up, poverty did NOT disappear, the nuclear family was undermined, etc...
The whole "values vote" deal was in no way limited to or even centered on gay "marriage" - that issue was, essentially, just the last straw.
The Left has a bad reputation which they have VERY MUCH EARNED.
Their reformation will depend very much on dropping the "progressive" agenda which has resulted in so much damage to what Middle America considers (rightly, I might add) hale and proper.