FIRST ON FOX: Former Vice President Mike Pence's conservative think tank is calling out what it says is a significant shift to the left over the last several decades.
"Over the last 50 years, the Democratic Party has increasingly abandoned ordinary Americans for its most radical fringe," reads a new memo from Advancing American Freedom (AAF) released ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week.
"Here is a sample of positions that Democrats held to in their past party platforms, even as they attack Republicans for believing many of the same things today," the memo said. "With the next party convention scheduled for August 2024, there is still time for Democrats to restore themselves as a party of moderation."
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The group noted that Pence himself was once a Democrat until changing his registration in 1983. "President Ronald Reagan was a registered Democrat until 1962," it added.
According to AAF's policy director John Shelton, the Democratic Party has "without a doubt" shifted more over the years than the Republican Party has. The group released a similar memo last month looking at the changes in the Republican National Convention platform.
"Their platform was a complete rejection of what the party once was," he said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
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The group highlights past stances of the Democratic Party on several issues to demonstrate the stark changes. On abortion, Pence's organization recalled previous DNC platforms in the 1980s and 1990s that acknowledged "the religious and ethical concerns" about abortion and stated their goal to make the procedure "rare."
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Shelton pointed to abortion and illegal immigration as the top two issues that the party has shifted on the most.
AAF's memo highlighted strong language against illegal immigration used by the DNC in 1996, stating they "cannot tolerate" it and "must stop it."
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The DNC platform at the time also read, "In 1992, our borders might as well not have existed. The border was under-patrolled, and what patrols there were, were under-equipped. Drugs flowed freely. Illegal immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned the very next day to commit crimes again."
AAF claimed the Democratic Party "has jettisoned a broad, bipartisan consensus on the critical issues of the day." The group further criticized media coverage that has portrayed the Republican Party as "extremists," given the Democrats' shift.
