@Cassiodorus Yah, this is true indeed.

The instincts of the Dem neoliberals are appropriate to the game they are playing. If the rank-and-file voted for Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama, and Clinton Two, that's a good indication that enough of them will continue to vote for Booker or Gillibrand or whomever the elites send down the pipe, the Democrats will continue to look like "the only viable party," Bernie Sanders will continue to sheepdog the faithful

Bernie recently came out with a screed solely devoted to Russia bashing. I thought he would avoid the subject in the same way he avoided talking about the "horse race and gossip" during the primaries--he was relentless with issues, issues, issues. Very disappointing as he is now taking his marching orders from party leadership and donors.

The democrats may make some gains next year, but it will all disappear in 2020.

on the actual extent of DemExit. Have the Republicans become a majority party in any so-called "blue state" yet?

The instincts of the Dem neoliberals are appropriate to the game they are playing. If the rank-and-file voted for Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama, and Clinton Two, that's a good indication that enough of them will continue to vote for Booker or Gillibrand or whomever the elites send down the pipe, the Democrats will continue to look like "the only viable party," Bernie Sanders will continue to sheepdog the faithful, and all the Important People will stay on the gravy train. Or at least that's how it will play out in their narcissistic, well-starched minds.

Of course, at some point the gravy train shrinks quite dramatically with climate change, and many of the voters who cast their lots with the Two-Party System will discover to their intense embarrassment that actual policy would have mattered, because their lifetime passes to the Disneyland of money, property, and commodities will no longer be valid and all they will be able to do is wait for disaster relief or hug their loved ones as the end comes.

@shaharazade

And a lot of people have been demexiting since Nader. All of them may not officially change registration, but they are either on paper or de facto indie or Green now. Or Republican, for that matter.

Actual numbers of registered voters should come up when you google that. However, you get polls, which include how people supposedly "lean." What if the question is, Which statement would you say is more accurately describes you: "I lean Democrat" or "I lean Republican?" and I feel like co-operating, I'm going to choose the first, even though I Demexited.

I looked up the Democratic party's 2016-2017 membership numbers and found a Gallup Poll.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx

In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent?
Trend since 2004

Republicans Independents Democrats
% % %
2017 Jan 4-8 28 44 25
2016 Dec 7-11 28 39 29
2016 Nov 9-13 27 40 30

It was weird looking this up as most queries for statistics get you page after page of partisan propaganda bs. opinion like the WaPo, Vox or the Hill that blamed the lefties for the Demexit. then there was page after page of DNC and Dem. state party sites along with Astro-turf orgs. Even the pollsters in 2016-7 if you read their analyses of the numbers frame their conclusions around Trump and seem to be stuck in the establishment R vs.D political bias. The tea leaf readers seem unable to look at whats going on across the established conventional party and ideological lines.

Pew, who I do respect, had article after article all about Democratic resistance to The Hairball. No wonder the polls from this farce of an election were so wrong and screwed up. Likely voters are dwindling as people are just not as stupid as they would have you believe.

http://www.people-press.org/topics/political-party-affiliation/

We make our living crunching numbers and stats for surveys. Lot's of them are political and many are for product market research. The questionnaires for the political surveys are almost laughable as they do not seem interested an anything other then tallying voters suckers into stereotyped demographics. They appear to have no interest other then confirming the partisan divides and confirming the conventional party bias. Seems to me there is something going on here that cannot be measured by binary stats and demographics that are weighted and tweaked to herd people into a binary reality that does not exist. Optimism? Yeah that's the ticket. Demographic profiles? Good luck.