Interview: how the Democratic Party was hijacked

In an interview with CNA, Mark Stricherz, the author of the book “Why the Democrats are Blue: How Secular Liberals Hijacked the People’s Party”, explains how the Democratic Party, once supported heavily by Catholics, has become increasingly secularized since the 1960s.

Stricherz explains how the McGovern Comission drove away Catholics and blue collar voters from the National Democratic Party. While the commission aimed to democratize the party’s nomination system, it ended up becoming highly feminist, activist and secular.

The interview can be found here in its entirety:


In his book, “Why the Democrats Are Blue: How Secular Liberals Hijacked the People's Party,” Mark Stricherz claims that what was once known as the "people's party" was changed to a party of secular and feminist values by a coup carried out in 1969. This hijacking can be discovered by a close look at the McGovern Commission, Stricherz argues. CNA had a chance to talk with him about his book and the dirty details.


Q: What background do you bring to the book?

I grew up in a traditional Catholic family and I really wanted to talk about the poor, and needy and the vulnerable. Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s in Bay Area, I really saw the difference between the values of my family and the growing secularization of the Bay Area.

Why was it that my family - we’re still Democrats - and these new people who’ve taken over the Democratic Party were Democrats? The party all seemed to change in the 70’s.

Being a reporter I’ve seen the changes covering Washington.


Q: What were your motivations, both personal and professional for writing this book?

Why was it that so few Democratic presidential candidates have won since 1968? I mean that is a bad streak. That was the worst since 1896-1928.

Also how has the party that used to be led by all of these Catholics come to be the party of abortion on demand, with no legal protections for a whole class of human beings? That’s a revolution not an evolution.”


Q: What is the main argument of your book?

Secular liberals used the 1969-72 McGovern Commission to hijack the National Democratic Party and impose their values on it. By driving away Catholics and blue collar voters, they helped the party to lose six of the last nine presidential elections.

Everyone talks about the defection of Southerners from the Democratic Party in the mid-1960’s, but everyone knows what caused that. It was when Johnson signed the civil rights act, in 1965. But why was it that Catholics left, because they have left?

Feminists specifically, and seculars in general, hijacked the party.

Q: What happened in 1969 with the McGovern Commission? Could you explain that for our readers?

The Democratic Party had a “boss” nomination system. In other words, state and local officials chose the party’s presidential nominee.

These bosses controlled the selection of delegates (the delegates at the convention choose the nominee of each party). The boss nomination process was undemocratic as a procedure, that was true, voters could not choose the nominee.

In 1968 anti-war protestors and young people had been marginalized and in a few cases excluded. So at the 1968 convention in Chicago, the party chose another reform commission to change the way the party selected their nominee. Basically they were going to go to a democratic system where voters picked the nominee instead of bosses.

What happened was in 1969 a small band of anti-war activists decided that they wanted to get an anti-war nominee in 1972. They did two things: one, they gave quotas fo