When Did the Democratic Party Become Such a Nervous Wreck?

‘Republicans are from Mars, Democrats are from Venus” goes an adage much beloved by pundits always looking for a convenient platitude to rest their elbows on. (Or chins.) Caricatured another way, Republicans are cast as the Daddy Party (jaw-jutting, decisive, disciplinarian, financially prudent, militarily assertive: meat), Democrats are the Mommy Party (huggy, permissive, socially concerned, globally cooperative: veggies). Such gender stereotypes may have outlived whatever hinky usefulness they ever had, as stereotypes are wont to do, but beneath the sexual cosplay of Republican executive blue suits versus Democratic mom jeans...