” Compared to the Democrats of a generation or two ago (Kennedy, Johnson, Scoop Jackson, Humphrey, Truman), “
All the folks you mentioned are about where Bernie Sanders is today regarding domestic economic policy. The party moved to the right in a big way starting with Jimmy Carter and continuing with Bill Clinton. Obama conned people into thinking he was a leftist because he had opposed the Iraq war; Richard Nixon was actually to Obama’s left on most issues.
” had a beefed up British and French military won World War II in 1939, Chamberlain would be remembered as a genius who concessions at Munich were a strategic brilliancy.”
Chamberlain had three problems: (1) He had no idea how weak Germany was militarily at the time, or that there were people in the German military who were planning a coup against Hitler had the negotiations failed, (2) He had no idea how bad the French leadership would turn out to be — much of the French Right preferred fascism to the French Left, and the French military leadership was atrociously bad, (3) He wasn’t able to get the UK to remilitarize. (FDR had the same trouble. It should be noted that Chamberlain’s two immediate predecessors — Baldwin and MacDonald, who between them had held the office of Prime Minister between 1923 and 1937 — were FAR more into appeasement than Chamberlain. MacDonald was actually a pacifist!)