A lot of these perceptions seem dated. For example over the last decade the Republican party has demonstrated pretty effectively that
The Republicans are the party of big government spending.
The Republicans are pretty awful at actually getting things done.
Sure, they SAY they stand for fiscal responsibility and competence, but their track record proves otherwise.
The Republicans are basically the party of rich people and big corporations. Helping out rich folks is really all they care about. Since the rich people are too few to vote them into office by themselves (and corporations can’t vote) the Republicans make promises to other, bigger voting blocks like the religious fundamentalists, the small government libertarians, and the anti-foreigner nativists. However this is just for show. They rarely follow through on these promises. Because the only thing they really care about is helping the rich.
The Democrats are the party of regular people. They’re a big tent with lots of different power bases in the party – labor unions, feminists, ethnic leaders, business leaders. Unlike the Republicans they really do care about trying to accomplish things for their different constituencies. However, because some of these interests are in conflict with each other the Democrats can seem unfocused and disorganized compared to the Republicans. They’re better at actually getting things done, however.
That’s more or less how I explained it to MY fourth grader … .
Republicans think that generally everyone can be pretty much trusted to get on by themselves without screwing it up for everyone else or failing horribly, and on the off chance it doesn’t work that’s your problem and you’ll deal with the consequences.
Democrats think that generally no-one can be trusted to get on by themselves without trying to screw the system or failing horribly, and that those who can’t pull themselves up by their bootstraps should have help and they’ll alleviate the consequences.
Those’d be what i’d call the ideals nominally, anyway. Certainly not what goes in in practice, on either side.
I got stymied on this same thing, actually, when my 2nd grader asked. I started off by focusing on the role that government should play, and I was saying that Republicans believe that government should butt out and let people and businesses arrange things for themselves, whereas Democrats believe government needed to help people and businesses solve and prevent problems. But I kept thinking of party policies that ran counter to these principles and I wondered if I knew what I was talking about. The discussion sort of trailed off and my child remains unenlightened. I’m reading this thread with interest.
The problem with this oversimplification is that some (many? most?) fourth graders might think that “the country” means the land, not an abstract concept. And then the oversimplification is dead wrong. In reality, at least in the abstract, both parties try and do what they think is best for the people and the country.
Reagan lowered taxes, increased spending, grew the budget and borrowed against Social Security. That pretty much defined the current Republican trend: spend what you don’t have and hopefully someone will pay it off later.
Other than their approaches to abortion, rights for homosexuals, support for minimum wage, tax policy, foreign policy, separartion of church and state, and environmental regulation, no there isn’t much difference.
The problem is that there are many different issues, which are not particularly related to each other other than their association with the political parties. So for a complete answer, you need to break down all of those issues, and say where each party stands on it. There’s no particular reason that the party which advocates a larger role for religion in public life should also be the party which supports private ownership of guns and the party which favors lower maximum tax rates. That’s just the way it happened to turn out in American politics.
I don’t think a single sentence description would be possible (and be meaningful enough) without separating things out a bit. So arbitrarily I’m going to say that there are three separate areas that the government deals with (and sort of a forth.)
Economy:
Republicans feel that you are better to help productive people be more productive to make the nation overall a better place.
Democrats feel that you are better to make sure that even the least productive are living comfortably.
Social Issues:
Republicans feel that if something is wrong, it should be punished fully as people don’t learn otherwise.
Democrats feel that punishing people for something they aren’t going to stop just makes them do it more.
Of course, both parties may be rather pschyzophrenic in following these when it comes to any particular issue.
International Relations:
Republicans generally are more willing to use military force and political pressure to police the world and get our way.
Democrats will generally be more concerned with international opinion and cooperation, though they will still use military force to police the world (though more bombing than ground troops.)
And theoretically there is also the fourth issue (which I am not sure anyone actually takes very seriously other than when it suites their own purpose.)
Federalism vs. State Government:
At current, in general the Republican party would rather see more things handled at the state level.
And Democrats would (theoretically) rather see more things handled at the Federal level.
I told mine that the Democrats are all foreign anti-Americans (‘Americans’ being us rich white men, of course) who want to take away the money that Daddy works to earn and give it to lazy people who sit around on their butts all day doing nothing.
And that Santa Claus is a Republican.
So we’re even.
Truthfully, I don’t have a 4th grader (my kids are 20, 6, and 4), so I really didn’t say any such thing. I don’t support either party exclusively (all the political parties suck, just like all generalizations) Neither am I ‘rich’ by any stretch of the imagination. It just bugs me to see such blatant partisanship being instilled in the mind of one at such an impressionable age. It doesn’t seem to me that such an explanation would be an incentive to further study, much less objective study.
If anyone deserves ‘fair and balanced’ reporting, it’s our children.
Here’s what I’d tell a 4th grader: The parties are just labels-- don’t pay attention to them. What matters is the individual politician and what his or her position is on the issues. Ther are good and bad Democrats and there are good and bad Republicans. I think 4th graders are generally smart enough to be able to understand that. You could even make a sports analogy, if that helps: You might like a pitcher on one team and a first baseman on another team. What matters is how honest the politician is (don’t laugh when you say that) and how much you agree with him/her.
I’m not sure it’s possible to explain and contrast the two main political parties without instilling one’s own viewpoint, so ‘fair and balanced’ may not work. And maybe it should be like religion where you explain this is what I believe, here’s what other people believe, and in the end you need to (or will) make your own choices.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Here’s what I’d tell a 4th grader: The parties are just labels-- don’t pay attention to them. What matters is the individual politician and what his or her position is on the issues.QUOTE]
Only on a theoretical level. What actually matters is that the newly elected individual politician (i.e. “Mr. Smith” of Washington fame) will soon find him/her self an inconsequential cog in a Senate/Congressional subcommittee, frequently “whipped” into embracing the subcommittee’s–or his own party’s–myopic domestic/intl. agendas, and forced to green light porkbarrel projects that further sink the US into debt or commit military troops to causes that are at best Phyrric.
I agree. I’d like to believe in the whole “vote the person, not the party” way, but I can’t. The way I’d like to see this country governed is better represented by one party, and not the other, so I definitely would like my party controlling the Congress, the Senate, etc… If the candidate for my party is so bad, then I’ll just sit out the election or vote third party.
