Why where you talking about Bill Clinton as a stand in for the entire current party? That was 20+ years ago. We are in an entirely different world.

Imagine if the Democratic controlled Senate had convicted Clinton. He would have been removed and Al Gore would have become POTUS. We would not be here today if the Dems had done the right thing regarding Bill Clinton. He was and still is a slime ball.

Economist Warren Mosler once met Al Gore and explained to him how the govt wasn't money restricted, and Gore understood and agreed, but said it would be impossible to sell to the voting public. He then got up and made a typical neoliberal speech. It's crazy. True story.

I was locating the point in time when the party completely accepted the orthodox economic position. Nothing has changed since then.

Yeah this is what I think too as I look back, this was the democrats leaning into liberalism as it pertains to less restrictions on the market.

Clinton's admin abolished the Glass-Steagall act. They also ran the first govt surpluses in most people's lifetimes. People seem to think that is good, but a govt surplus means the govt restricts spending (to less than taxation) which just runs down the public's income/savings. They bought the lie.

Yes. Exactly this. His administration also gutted welfare and passed DOMA

That's true. I don;t blame Clinton personally for that DOMA, but it's clear to see what a lot of the mainstream party were like. Some are still there.

I really don’t know how much a president has active hands on vs his administration, but yeah the party went like this mainstream and then danced back on social issues a bit, but…..

When Clinton took power Dems had a senate/house majority. He could have pushed through single payer health reform. However there were background machinations. A lot of advisors pushing neoliberal economics, which they used to get centrist/right voters on board. So-called 'fiscal responsibility'.

So loosely I’m getting that we put a lot of things in place after the Great Depression to take care of our populace, and then spent the rest of time trying to dismantle it, which led us to citizens united and here with a lot of rich people trying to stay rich, what do you think?

In sum, yes. It's pretty old starting in the late '60s with business trying to dismantle the post-war consensus economy. A lot of propaganda. There are many parts to this. Politically the Powell Memorandum was a key part.

and laid off 377k federal workers to be replaced with contractors

It marks the point neoliberalism became truly bipartisan.