A question for those who think the Democrats and Republicans are both the same.

Politics & Elections
1

When I read the comment sections of political stories, or even here on the message board, I sometimes see the claim made that t he Republicans and Democrats have no real differences between them. This is sometimes expressed as the opinion that one side is just as bad as the other. I don’t think that is the case, but if anyone here does have that belief, I would love to hear why you believe that. My theory is that people with that belief fall into one of two categories.

I think the first category are people on the far left who feel that since the Democratic Party isn’t a far left party that they are no different than the Republicans. I suppose that some people on the far right were like this too, but can now support Tea Party type Republicans. The far left doesn’t have such a movement of candidates to support.

I think the second category are people who are / were moderate Republicans who can’t support the hard right turn the Republican Party has taken, but can’t bring themselves to support the Democratic Party either.

I would love to be shown wrong. Please share your reasoning if you hold this belief. I find the phenomenon of “both sides are the same” and “both sides are just as bad” interesting, and I would like to learn more about it. Please move to a different forum if appropriate.

2

One side as bad as the other is nothing like both being the same. When I was a child almost a hundred years ago you would hear people say that you wouldn’t be able to explain the difference between the Democratic and Republican parties to someone from another country. Since that time both parties have become less diverse and they’ve each settled in on their own divisive issues. Still in some ways they are both the same, their votes are for sale to the highest bidder and they’ll say or do whatever they think necessary to be re-elected.

3

Are both parties really equally corruptible? According to this source, most big money donors support Republicans.

https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?cycle=2016&disp=O&type=S&chrt=P

Doesn’t this show that most super wealthy people support the Republicans? If both sides could be bought off equally, wouldn’t the money come in to both sides evenly so that the donors still had influence regardless of who wins the election?

4

I see it mainly from the very far right. From their perspective, Democrats are the party of big government, and Republicans are the party of very nearly as big government, growing just a tiny bit slower.

5

Money itself isn’t the only form of corruption, and the amounts of individual bribes don’t determine the effect either. Republicans have been enjoying a congressional advantage for a long time now so it’s going to reflect in the donations. As I stated, both parties have chosen their divisive issues and the Democrats have chosen ‘anti-wealth’ issues that will turn off many Republicans.

To be clear, I’m wouldn’t argue that they are equally bad, but I could say they’ve both exceeded my threshold.

6

Just as one example, I suspect that nearly as many Democrats have extramarital affairs as Republicans, and this will be pointed to as one being as bad as the other. What the Democrats are pointing to, though, is not the infidelity, but the hypocrisy of the Republicans who ally themselves with the religious right, campaign on “family values” and blame every thing that is wrong with the country on moral decay.

Spending is another example. Republicans constantly harp on cutting spending, but they tend to cut taxes even more, so have a much worse record for budget balancing. Both parties spend like crazy, just a matter of on what (military vs. domestic) and if they tax or borrow to pay for it.

And then there is spin. One party has “news” network dedicated to promoting it’s talking points. Show me one example of MSNBC labeling a troubled Democrat as ®. No, they are not the same.

7

Just an opinion, I think they are the same in that both seem to be more interested in doing what is best for the party versus what is best for the country. The idea that someone in Congress could think that compromise is the same as surrender (a newly elected tea party backed person a few years ago - don’t recall the name) is scary.

The winner-take-all general concept is the worst part. Even with a 247-188 split in the house, that is still 43% of the country who had a different idea. If you take total votes to evaluate the impact of gerrymandering, the votes by party are very close.

I realize that is an idealistic view. My realistic view is that the rise of 24-hour cable news and the internet is having the effect of forcing people to group more strongly into the parties. If a Republican supports his party on everything except one bill, he gets the RINO label. There is not an equivalent term for Democrats but on key issues the impact will be the same.

8

They both have a vested interest in keeping the governmental status quo in place. Dan Carlin has pointed out many times, and I agree with him, that there is a vast amount of important stuff that is never even talked about, much less debated, by both parties. The corruption is deeply entrenched in the system. Both parties distract us from that by harping on a handful of hot-button issues that are very effective for distracting us from what we should be looking at.

9

People forget (or never realized in the first place) that there is a difference between politics and government. When I see most comments people make about the Federal Government, I conclude that they never lived and worked in the D.C. area! Government is a huge convoluted machine that operates as it will, parties notwithstanding. I do agree that they are the same in that they both focus on party/ideology/elections instead of good government.

10

I’m genuinely curious as to what you consider the important stuff that is never talked about.

11

Sorry but this sort of statement is exactly the sort of false equivalence that the OP is talking about. While it is the case that both parties do try to work in the direction of partisan advantage, the Republicans have taken it to a whole new level.

The Republican opposition to Obamacare went beyond simply opposing its passage. Even after it was the law of the land they did everything in their power to make its implementation as painful to the American people as possible. When Obama wanted to delay the implementation of the employee mandate, they opposed him, even though one would think that delaying the implementation of a law they didn’t like would would better match their views of what is best for the country. They knew that this would cause more pain and so make Obama look bad.

Contrast this with the Democrats under the Bush administration. While it is clear that Bush owned the Iraq war and the worse that war went the better off their election prospects would be, they didn’t try to actively hinder the war effort, and get as many American servicemen killed as possible.

12

I don’t agree with your categorization which splits them into two groups, both with current or former political identification. At the very least, there should be a third category: those who know little about the political process, get most of their news from sound bites, and really don’t identify with either party. I’ve been an election day pollworker for a few years now and I’m still somewhat surprised at the number of people who show up for primary elections and are either offended or at a loss when we ask them which ballot they want. And these are people who at least come out to vote. I think most of those who say one party is as bad as the other and all politicians are crooks don’t bother to vote in either primary or general elections.

I could get on my soapbox and point out that when a profession falls into disgrace, it’s difficult to persuade honest, intelligent people to consider entering that profession (e.g., used car salesman), but I won’t go on. I’ll just say that those who complain that there aren’t any good ones out there are part of the problem, not the solution.

13

I think is the similarity that they both make lots of promises, have lofty goals, then once in power both find themselves unable to get much really done, most getting watered down such that it is all but unrecognizable. Faced with the problems of actually enacting their programs they inevitably end up doing spin and/or back pedalling, which pretty much sounds identical whichever party is pitching it today.

There are similarities in part because they both face the same difficulties getting government to work!

14

Your two categories should be expanded to include those who are not on one team- the Independents, and perhaps those who have apathy in the political process- the non-voters, who are actually the majority.

Politics is like pro wrestling. Both sides are ying and yang- they need each other to exist, and regardless of their rhetoric, philosophy, or ideology, their end results of the government to which they are part of are one and the same.

You can be rest assured that:

a liberal peaceful anti-war president will continue existing wars or authorize military strikes.
a fiscally conservative president will increase spending
both support the status quo, which is two parties, three classes, attacking opponents with commercials, managing the economy via ivory tower elitists, not allowing a poor person to run for president, keep us focused on our differences (race, religion, education, status, ethnic, immigration status, etc.), ban hallucinogens, keeping the U.S. the world’s policeman, changing history in text books, etc
both will raise taxes
both will expand government
both will take away civil liberties in the name of national security
both will expand their executive order privileges
both are supported by the same corporations
both will bail out banks
both practice Keynesian economics
both say the US has interests in the Middle East
both are big fans of the Federal Reserve
both are influenced or corrupted by special interest groups
both exclude third parties
both will continue food stamps, welfare, social security benefits, and medicare
both support drone strikes
both support spying
both allow the CIA and NSA to do anything they want
both deport illegal immigrants and bust drug users
both support public education
both implicitly support the rising prison populations
both pander to their own demographics and market themselves as a brand
both are itching to regulate the internet
both will keep poor people poor
both play the persecuted card
both blame each other
both of their demographics are fanatically loyal and think in “us vs them” terms, as shown on the responses above

Yes they argue over budgets, gays, sex, healthcare, and religion. Yes, they have different histories and thinkers. But it’s part of the show- each side just has their own demographics.

On the other hand, if one party disappeared, the whole game is over, something some posters here don’t get. There would be no one to blame or “block” legislation or “create witch hunts”. It would be unrestricted legislation.

Yes, it’s a paradox and two truths exist at the same time: they are the same, but if there is just ONE party, we’d be in worse shape because we’d be under a dictatorship, something that both sides don’t get.

It’s easier for me, an Independent, to see, as I don’t root for one side or defend corrupt politicians just because “one side” is “after” them. . And, yes, politics is separate from government, which is a machine. However, the politicians promise reform, but make the bureaucracy bigger, and corruption is rampant.

15

I am basically a one issue candidate: I vote Democrat because they are more supportive of safety nets.

Other than this both parties are usually both on the wrong side of priority issues. For example:

  1. Both support an excessive military and military expansionism (the Middle East in particular has been a disaster)
  2. Both are hostile to civil liberties (from Snowden revelations to no-knock)
  3. Both very much support “keep bankers rich” (neither wanted to prosecute massive financial fraud associated with last recession)
  4. Both are controlled by rich contributors and special interest groups.
    …
16

The old joke used to be that one party was a bunch of war mongering corporate shills and the other party are the Republicans. Some think this is has grown untenable over the last decade due to the GOP falling into cuckooland. Even Chomsky started telling people to vote Dem. This doesn’t erase Democratic policies, however, like Obama seemingly trying to hit a “BINGO” on bombing Middle Eastern countries, or Hillary pretending to be some sort of hero of the working class while being Wall Street’s best friend.

I would agree that the “both are the same” view would mostly be from outsiders: lefties, ancaps, libertarians, greens, etc. The spectrum of acceptable political opinion in this country is fairly narrow compared to others. Elsewhere, Bernie Sanders wouldn’t be anything unusual. Here he’s seen as some sort of aberration, and media on both sides made fun of him before he shot up in the polls.

It also depends on what issues you care about. If you care about abortion, big difference. If you think social issues like guns and gays are red herrings to economics or foreign policys then it’s easier to see them as the same.

I think the last time I saw really heated debates on this was after 2004 when despondent Dems were looking for someone to blame so there was a renewal of Nader bashing for bringing two terms of Bush. Lots of snark on his not a dime’s worth of difference quote. Why, if Gore were in office we wouldn’t be in Iraq and he’d have done something to slow global warming. If you want to hear howls of outrage tell a Dem that Gore was a hawkish interventionist who was in favor of regime change in Iraq.

Also, at some point in these debates someone will bring up Supreme Court nominations.

17

When I was a kid I asked my dad what the difference was between Republicans and Democrats.
“'bout ten cents.”

I think that pretty much sums up a lot of people’s perception of how politics effects them on a personal level. The parties being so damn divisive now though, you almost feel like you have to pick a side. There’s nothing worse than being moderate. Thus, the noise got pushed out to the extremes. And what has all that noise really done for anyone?

18

Good post, which I entirely agree with. Are the Republicans and Democrats exactly identical on every issue? No. Are they pretty similar on most issues? Yes.

Gay marriage. Republican leaders are opposed to it. Democratic leaders were opposed to it until very recently?

Food stamps. It’s a common accusation from Democrats that Republicans are trying to “cut” or “slash” or “gut” the food stamp program, but it’s untrue. When the last Ag. Department funding bill was being debated in 2013, both parties proposed sizable increases in the total amount spent on food stamps. The Democrats proposed the largest increase, while the Republicans proposed a slightly smaller increase.

Military spending. Typically the Republicans fight for a little bit more than the Democrats, but both are quite content with over half-trillion annual direct spending on the military, which is almost as much as the rest of the world combined.

19

I find it fascinating that you maintain that they’re both the same, and yet, the two examples you give are both examples of Republican bad behavior, and you don’t even attempt to give corresponding examples for the Democrats. What is the basis, then, for the claim of similarity?

20

I still remember a biography documentary about Bob Dole.

One curious anecdote was that when he decided to get into politics one could make a stronger case that the parties were very similar as they were in transition regarding many issues.

It was such a confusion regarding ideals that Bob Dole approached a friend for advice on what party to join, it was a really sad for history that Dole’s friend advised him to join the Republicans.

As evidence of how much things have changed one should not forget how the Republicans of today followed the dictates of the extreme tea party and ignored what Bob Dole has recommended and even fought for.