I've heard it often here and among liberal circles that there is no difference between the Democrats and Republicans. This view among liberals reached its height in 2000 with Nader's campaign but is even now still very prevalent. I can understand this from the view of a Libertarian, Anarchists or Communists but I find it both surprising and also nihlistic that this view is held by wide swath of American liberals. If liberals didn't believe it before the Presidency of GW Bush should've shown that there are vast differences between the RNC and DNC. While Al Gore probably would've invaded Afghanistan and enacted something like the Patriot Act could anyone imagine that Gore would appoint an Ashcroft, John Bolton to UN Ambassadorship, a Piscilla Owens to Federal Appeals or a John Roberts to the USSC. For that matter would a Gore Admin. have reduced federal environmental standards through legislation and reduced enforcement or had industry lobbyists meeting secretly with VP Lieberman energy task force? To me the attitudes that Democrats are no different than Republicans and that a Kerry or Gore are no different than GW Bush to me ignores really how powerful the Presidency and control of the US Congress are. So while both raise money like crazy from rich fat cats and corporations they are not devoid of ideoligical positions and will enact policies and make appointments that are fundamentally different.
You can find vast differences if you compare one Democrat to another, or one Republican to another. I think a lot of people think Democrats and Republicans are the same in the fact that both parties are the "establishment" in Washington. While there are idealogical differences between the two, the government really doesn't skip a beat when going from a Republican presidency to a Democratic presidency. I usually vote Democratic as the lesser of the two evils.
In the fish bowl that is the American two party system, there seem to be huge differences. In the scheme of all political systems, the two are virtually identical.
I think mostly they are the same. They are parallel lines that have occasional spikes in opposite directions. The parties are both united in keeping any third parties from participating in any truly meaningful way in the process.
Now now, of course they are different. Republicans write bills that give money to their groups : highway engineers, defense contractors, trade advocates and corporate tax avoidance advocates, and they punish public and private sector unions, trial lawyers, health care cartels, and protectionists that are solidly democratic. Both manipulate gullible emotion bases. Pubs manipulate the blind religious, Dems manipulate would-be do-gooders with an overarching sense of moral superiority.
True but America usually isn't one given to radical swings in political ideology. Further I think the people who don't think the parties are very different are ignoring the realities of what it takes to win the Presidency and how our federalists system with its geographic balance is really designed to weed out the most extreme. That still doesn't mean that there isn't fundamental differences between the two. As I said do you think a President Gore would've appointed John Ashcroft to Justice or Donald Rumsfeld to Defense and how much difference just those two appointments might've made.
Yes I agree that the parties work to keep out third parties but the biggest culprit for keeping third parties out is our Constitutional system and the rules and traditions of Congress. Since an inordinate power is invested in the office of Presidency and the national election system with electoral college means that it takes an inordinate amount of energy, organization and money to win office. The winner take all system of most electoral colleges also means that the stakes are very high and the importance of state party organizations. Those hurdle make it practically impossible for anyone outside of the parties besides someone with a lot of their own money to build an organization to even compete for president. The rules of Congress particularly the house gives a great amount of power to the party in majority. Consider how big of a change it was for the switch of one senator in the Senate. In the house the majority party and speaker wield almost near tyrannical power and can kill or pass legislation just be controlling the timing of when bills are debated. Since unlike a parliamentary system people are elected by geographical district, that is subject to redistricting, parties without national affiliation have a difficult time getting people elected. In the cases that a socialists, green or libertarian get elected in Congress they wield little power since they have no party to work with in leadership. So in the case of Bernie Sanders the socialists he's a Democrat in all but name. While Greens, Libertarians and others might nationally have a higher percentage of support than represented in Congress its doubtful they can ever get as many people elected to be representative of their support or hope to wield meaningful power. Each race is run locally but Congress is run nationally so it takes an organization that can work at the local levels but also function nationally. The only political parties that can do that now are the two major parties.
Opposite ends ideologically, on most but not all issues, but that is where the difference ends. Both parties are bloated money machines that couldn't care less about the American people.
The question then is given the amount of orginization and money required to affect political change under the US system how are people going to get people elected and legislation passed without going through the existing political parties?
Not likely, therefore it makes campaign finance reform all the more important. But then again do you expect a chicken born not from egg? This could well turn into an evolution/ID like discussion.
I would say it this way "Both parties are completely controlled by the same elite wealthy money cabel that determines their beauracracy and policy." They fill up the memberships of the worlds controlling elite- G8, U.N., council of foreign relations, bildeburgers, tri-lateral commission. When it comes to deciding the fate of the world both parties are well represented and have their orders given to them. (Go creation, rah, rah, rah )
They are a little different philisophically but both parties have 2 main goals: a) to get re-elected (this is the big one) b) to grab as much of our money as they can get their hands on As much as we argue Dems vs. Pubs, it's really us vs. them. Us being regular people, them being politicians. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go listen to some Rage Against the Machine followed by a little Public Enemy.
I for one won't be surprised if Lieberman were the VP, and Gore wanted to do something to reform the health care system, there would be secret meetings with health insurance lobbyists. Don't quite understand, Sirshir, what are in Kucinich and Nader's agendas you disapprove so much?
I myself am a political moderate who believes in free trade and federalism. I find people like Kucinich and Nader's views unrealistic, utopian and potentially harmful. My critique here isn't exactly directed on their views but what I see as a fundamental lack of understanding of the US political system by their supporters. A lot of this goes back to hearing a Nader rally in 2000 where Granny D said that yes it was very likely that voting for Nader would mean Bush's victory but that would be a good thing because Bush would only be in temporarily and he would make things so bad that there would be huge backlash leading to more liberal political scene. That was and is very possible but the problem is that its naive because it ignores the longterm implications in regard to court appointees. Further for a green who likes to say that, extinction is forever, it totally ignores the amount of damage to the environment that could be done by the roll back of federal standards and enforcement.
This is another thing that really annoys. Any parties goal, even the Greens and Socialists is to get re-elected and to get as much money as they can to do so. Where they raise their money from is another matter but its not like the Greens would turn down a $100K from George Soros. If political parties aren't going to work for getting candidates elected or at least candidates who listen to their issues there's no point to their existence. This us vs. them mentality is another thing. We're not helpless victims to political parties and moneyed interests. Ultimately we do vote and if so many young voters had bothered to get to the polls instead of staying home to listen to Rage Against the Machine very likley Kerry would've won. Also how many here have actually worked on a campaign or attended local party caucuses? Believe it or not grassroots actively play a huge role in the parties, especially at the level of congressional and state candidates. People beyatch about how the parties aren't responsive to their interests yet they don't show up or help organize. Why the parties end up getting hijacked by extremists is because those are the ones who show up at the caucus and become delegates. If it is us vs. them then really the only ones we have to blame for the parties not being responsive to us the average folk is ourselves.
Our overall foreign policy doesn't skip a beat regardless of whether a Dem or a Repub is in office. Sure the approach might differ, but the goals are always the same. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the same people who direct our foreign policy agenda (Council of Foreign Relations, AIPAC, etc.) have both parties in their pockets for the most part.
From today's WaPo The Art of Telling Parties Apart GOP More Geared to Business, the Professions, Bush Aide Says By Sam Coates Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, August 11, 2005; A21 Forget tax cuts, the abortion issue and whether they wear the American flag as a lapel pin. We have, it appears, a new way of distinguishing Republicans from Democrats, at least in the federal city. It emerged last week, without fanfare, at an annual gathering of young Republicans, from Tim Goeglein, White House deputy director of public liaison. Working under Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, Goeglein spends his time trying to mollify various conservative groups, and then transmitting concerns and demands to President Bush. As a political high-wire artist, he knows how difficult it is to distill the different strands of conservatism into a single idea or theory. While addressing more than 200 Republican students aiming to be tomorrow's leaders and federal highfliers last Friday at George Washington University, the White House official managed just that. Goeglein recalled a dinner party that he and his wife recently attended in Northwest. Out of the six couples around the table, Goeglein and his wife were the only Republicans. As is inevitably the case, he said, the conversation soon turned to the couples' children -- most 5 or 6 years old -- and aspirations for their future occupations. One parent said editor; another, publisher; a third wanted the child to go into education. "I was intrigued by the question, and the answers of every one of our Democratic friends," Goeglein said. Not one parent, he said, gave an answer that would be more typical of Republicans. "Our party, in the way it is constituted, we think of medicine, we think of law, we think of business. We don't think, gee, I hope my son grows up to be a great playwright or painter or poet," he explained. Whether a future government employee, a bureaucrat, would win the approval of a GOP parent, he did not say. Author Mark Helprin, who considers himself a conservative, agrees. "Of course, you would have to be insane to hope your child grows up to be a playwright or poet. Given the odds, you would have to be quite cavalier about your children's future." He recalled that at one point, a million people reported to the IRS that they were writers. Helprin believes only 50 to 100 people at a time can be successful in that occupation. Helprin's father was deeply upset when his son became a fiction writer because it was a "difficult" career that can lead to an unfulfilled life. But his father's fears proved baseless: Helprin has written a string of successful novels and two decades' worth of articles for the New Yorker, for which he has won a number of prizes including the Prix de Rome and the National Jewish Book Award. As for his offspring, one is at Harvard studying classics -- "not exactly law or medicine" -- while the other is studying public health at Johns Hopkins. Helprin said that over the centuries the arts community embraced figures from the right of the political spectrum as well as the left. He said this is no longer true, pointing out that George Orwell and Graham Greene were both vilified when they moved to the right. "There's a deterrent effect for Republicans from joining that community. I recently wrote an apolitical book of short stories, and I was attacked for my politics. When I wrote a book about a World War I soldier, the New York Times book review said in paragraph one that I was a Republican. They wouldn't point out that Norman Mailer is a Democrat." Political scientists have long identified how certain professions lean toward particular political parties. According to data gathered by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research group, 69 percent of contributions from people in the television, music or film industry go to Democrats. There is no category for writers. "A lot of people tend to vote for their economic interest. So doctors see their interests more aligned with the Republicans, believing that Democrats favor more of a standardized health care plan, while 86 percent of those in movie production give to Democrats," said Larry Noble, the center's executive director. But what about parents' ambitions for their children? Noble said there were no data available to answer that. "That's almost too anecdotal: I know Democrats who want their kids to be doctors, and I know Republicans who are writers," he said. "I do think it's one thing to look at political contributions. So maybe it's [Goeglein's] experience or his circle." Robert Lynch, president and chief executive of Americans for the Arts, also was not convinced by Goeglein. "I would say that it makes a great dinner anecdote, but I don't think it's true." He pointed out that congressional Republicans sided in favor of the National Endowment for the Arts when the Reagan administration was threatening to close it down. But for Helprin, the divide remains. "The arts community is generally dominated by liberals because if you are concerned mainly with painting or sculpture, you don't have time to study how the world works. And if you have no understanding of economics, strategy, history and politics, then naturally you would be a liberal." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/10/AR2005081001791.html
