I think that the fundamental move to the right by the Democrats was in the 90s under Clinton when the Democrats bought into NAFTA. Labour was fundamentally against the agreement, which did indeed speed up the gutting of the American working class. The Republicans - who had been the architects of free trade - were already entirely for it. Ross Perot was the most successful third party candidate in history because he was against it.
Chuck Schumer in 2016:
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For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.
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