Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You

President John F. Kennedy's retrospective public approval ratings have improved 27 points since the last months of his presidency. See Gallup, "Kennedy Still Highest-Rated Modern President, Nixon Lowest" (via Memeorandum and Weasel Zippers). Kennedy is the reason many young people become Democrats, myself especially. President Jimmy Carter, who's post-presidency rankings are tanking, is the reason many older people abandon the Democratic Party, and more recently Bill Clinton, myself included. And if President Carter's legacy has any inferential meaning for contemporary history, no doubt large numbers of young people today will also become alienated from the current Democratic president, who is likely to suffer from a disgraced public memory as well. That's why the current leadership has to prop itself up with a large population of recent immigrants and, in come cases, the undocumented. Democrats never ask what they can do for their country any longer, but what upper level income earners can do for them.