Bates College professor Tyler A. Harper is the latest to take whack at what’s ailing Dems these days – and it’s a pretty interesting look at the race between Republicans and Democrats to capture the “populist, post-neoliberal” center in America, a voting bloc roughly described thusly: “Americans who are moderate or even small-c conservative on social issues, but who also favor a more aggressive, rabble-rousing attack on the country’s existing economic system.” … As Harper notes in his Atlantic piece, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy has emerged as one of the leading advocates of Dems more aggressively courting working-class and other centrist voters. … The economic-focused approach is a sound one. But the problem is that the Democratic Party has a deeply entrenched, highly vocal and influential faction of college-educated progressives who value social issues far more than bread-and-butter economic issues – and they’ve woven those social-issues into a moralistic world view in which contrary opinions and compromise are seen as heresies. Look what happened to Seth Moulton when he dared to question just one orthodoxy, re trans-athletes. Defenders of the faith have all but vowed to run him out of the party. … What will it take to change things? It’s not going to happen by consensus. That’s a given. It’s probably going to take a Bill Clinton-type of centrist (without Clinton’s obvious personal liabilities) to shove and pull the party in a new direction. Even with a strong left-center leader, Dems aren’t going to suddenly shed most of their controversial social-issue stands. They may move toward the center. But they likely won’t capture and hold the center anytime soon. …

… Speaking of the future of the Democratic Party, Contrarian Boston’s Scott Van Voorhis hosted a chat the other day on what ails Dems. There’s a lot of moderate-Dem frustration out there, judging by CB subscribers’ comments. … And here’s more Dem doom-and-gloom pieces. From the Times: “Democrats Don’t Have an Easy Way Out.” … Also via the NYT: “Bad News, Democrats: America Is About to Get Even Redder.” … From Liberal Patriot: “How Democrats Misread the Environment.” … And from the Hill: “Democrats need change — Rahm Emanuel should lead the effort.”