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I chatted with a young woman in a coffee shop a few weeks ago.

She was in her early 20s. A graduate student at NYU. Tattooed and heavily pierced. She was reading a book by Guy Debord, the Situationist (Marxist) philosopher.

I asked her what she thought of the book. She said she understood why it inspired many activists, but thought it was impractical and even dangerous in a way. A recipe for an authoritarian to take advantage of the power vacuum.

I agreed. I said that I had thought about the problem quite a bit.

We had a good conversation, and I recommended three books for her:

Human Scale, by Kirkpatrick Sale (a very unorthodox leftist)
Small is Beautiful, E.F. Schumacher

and the book I was reading,

The Way Back, by Frank Buckley

the last of which is practically Trump’s unacknowledged policy blueprint. Prof. Buckley is on the editorial board of The American Spectator and is also an adviser to the Trump campaign.

We traded emails. Let’s see if my young pupil follows through on her enthusiasm to learn more.

One thing I've wondered about is what specific events and broader social trends transformed the Democratic Party into what it is today. When you look at Harry Truman, JFK, or even Tip O'Neill in the Reagan years, you see people with whom you disagree with on any number of policies but who A. Didn't hate the United States of America, B. Didn't pander to vicious anti-white hatred among "minorities," and C. may have been liberal on any number of social or cultural issues, but never had any use for the radical fringe.

Jim Webb tried to resurrect this brand of Democrat for the first few months of the primaries and failed miserably. Part of if it was due to the fact that the DNC was dead-set on blacking out all candidates besides Hillary, part of it was due to the fact that Webb didn't put much energy or effort into it, but most of it is due to the fact that the Democratic Party has no room for that type of candidate.

As far as I can tell, the only types of Democrat who remain politically viable are Bernie Sanders with his repackaged European Socialism, whose appeal is mostly limited to wide-eyed idealist college kids, and Clinton-style crooks. Clinton Democrats are an interesting phenomenon: they're as much in the pockets of Wall Street and other special interest as the Republicans they attack, but who have managed to cultivate loyal voting block among mostly non-white impoverished "minorities" and various other social dregs thanks to blatant pandering to anti-white and anti-American sentiments and with welfare handouts.