Well things are just not the same as they were back when Jefferson was around. Back then over 90% of the population was involved in farming as their primary vocation with the farm being adjacent to their house and it was a family operation. Today less than 2% of the population is into farming and much of that is done on very large corporate farms with most of the people not related. Back then we didn't have a central bank and the economy ran on silver coins. Since then we went onto the gold standard and off and now the Fed regulates the money supply. Few people seem to understand what that means or how it works now. As for Republicans, they couldn't care less. Today they preach exactly what they preached late 18th century and what conservatives in Europe preached before that. But Democrats have kept up with the times. Because of this, the need to "reinvent ourselves". Otherwise no one would be around to save the economy when ever it goes off into the proverbial ditch.