How true do you think these two statements is?
The Democrats used to represent the better instincts of the common man. Now they represent the better instincts of the elite.
The Republicans used to represent the worst instincts of the elite, now they represent the worst instincts of the common man.
Had that thought today, and while one can certainly find many exceptions, it seems at least somewhat truish to me. Anyone disagree?
The Republicans are in a tangle right now. The elite know exactly what they want, just like they always have, but the elite have always been a small minority, so they can’t get what they want just from their own votes. So they need to offer something to appeal to the common man in order to gain any political power. Their problem is that the common man has now gained so much political power that they’re in control of the party, and they have no idea what to do with that power, and no interest in using it the way the elite wants.
I agree that Democrats are representatives of elitist interests and Republicans are representative of the interests of the common man.
I disagree that Democrats represent “better instincts” and Republicans represent “worst instincts”
I’m pretty certain that answer surprises very few people who read it.
There seems to be an ongoing tussle in both parties, more over priorities than actual disagreement on issues, although there’s some of that too.
One thing I know for sure, both parties will look a lot different when it’s complete, much as the parties changed a lot after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Vietnam War. It’s hard to predict how it will all shake out.
These are the simplistic cliches that feed the cable news echo chambers, where empty terms like elite and common man get tossed about without really meaning anything.
I’m not even sure what the OP means by “elites.” The Democratic Party seems to back policies that will help the economy, the environment, support civil rights and benefit working people. The Republican Party has some different approaches, that would perhaps be worthy of consideration if they had not lost all credibility by refusing to denounce Trump after he won the nomination.
I wanted a better way to phrase it, but it did seem to me that the Republican Party by default wants to serve the more selfish interests of the elite(anti-union, cut social spending, cut taxes, cut regulation). I don’t mean to imply that those aren’t necessarily good policies. I’ve long been in favor of a lot of that stuff. I just recognize the nature of politics and know that a lot of the people who are powerful and advocate for those policies aren’t looking out for anyone but themselves. I was comfortable with a Republican party that was mean, but also coldly sensible.
The Democrats, by contrast, saw their path to success after the New Deal by representing the interests of the common man. At first, they appealed to both the worst and best instincts(Medicare, Social Security, unions, but also xenophobia, racism, anti-trade, and anti-immigration). The party evolved to be more idealistic, at least among it’s activist class if not it’s politicians.
So while I was being intentionally simplistic in describing the two parties, I have always thought that the Democratic party’s idealism is it’s greatest strength and the source of it’s screwiest ideas.
I can neither agree or disagree with your statement, because I don’t agree with the particulars - namely use of the words better and worse. what are the “better” instincts and why are they better? What are the “worse” instincts and why are they worse?
mc
I see our posts crossed, but you’re still using terms like “selfish” which carries a neg connotation. and “idealism” which doesn’t
I’m not either, but I suspect it’s got something to do with ivory towers and New York values, and very little to do with people that drive trucks or get their hands dirty while working.
Elites in terms of who the Democrats represent today: Wall Street, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, people with post graduate degrees. It’s pretty clear who steers the ship and that’s actually the primary criticism of the Bernie faction.
That’s probably true. In general, I’d say “idealistic” is a word that describes the Democrats more often than Republicans.
Better instincts= fuzzy idealism, appealing to hopes more than fears
worst instincts= cold hearted self interest, appealing to grievance.
I’m uncomfortable with that explanation because it is simplistic and Democrats have certainly fanned the flames of grievance in their time. But the Trump era Republican party has taken this to an entirely new level. If there was ever a “mad as hell and not taking it anymore” platform it was the Trump Republican Party platform.
Sounds pretty on the nose. Except I would say we’re seeing the fall of the Democratic Party as it fractures into two parties (Social-Democrat Party, and “Democratic Party”, composed of the moderate left to neo-con right), and the death of Reagan-style Conservatism in the GOP in favor of Trumpian populism and white nationalism. The GOP, I feel, will outlive the Democratic Party by a few years. The Trump wing of the GOP doesn’t hate the Reagan wing of the GOP as much as the Bernie wing of the Democrats hates the centrist/Hillary wing, and vice versa in both cases. The wings of the GOP are united in opposition to the poor, POC, and social safety nets and united in favor of big business. The two wings of the Democratic Party are much more at odds with eachother. The only reason the GOP may lose in 2020 is because of Trump.
I wholeheartedly disagree. That’s the Republican (and crazy left) image of the Democratic Party.
You know, I don’t think this is really much about ideology. We’ve gotten used to the idea of Democrats as left, Republicans are right, but throughout most of our history it hasn’t been like that. Parties have been more about region and culture than about ideology for most of US history, and I think we’re seeing a return to that paradigm.
I think we’ve already seen movement towards identity being a bigger factor in one’s political alliances than ideology.
I was just perusing some exit polls from the 2016 election. When describing their “feelings about how the federal government is working” Trump won a whopping 77% of those who answered “angry” (and a plurality of those who answered “dissatisfied”).
He got 69% of those who said the direction of the country was “seriously off track” and 79% of those who said the condition of the nation’s economy was “poor”
I’ve always felt that the Repub’s where more focused on making sure the “machinery” of the country was running properly which would then allow individuals to take care of themselves.
Whereas Dem’s felt that if you took care of individuals; made them better and stronger, they could better participate in the “machinery” of the state thereby making it better.
It can be seen as a top down vs bottom up approach.
In that case, not much has changed in the last several decades, altho the specific items each has decided are the most important have.
mc
That’s potentially a problem for the Democratic Party. The right in all regions is generally united by anti-union, anti-immigrant, pro-Christianity, anti-poor, anti-abortion, and anti-gun control stances. What cultural and regional issues unite the left?
That to me is Reagan-era thinking. The current GOP ideology is “burn it all down.” They went from supporting small efficient government, to wanting to break the government purely out of spite. The GOP nowadays doesn’t care about policy beyond doing whatever most upsets the left.
In terms of priorities, I don’t know that it can be argued that it’s false. What have the Democrats been most focused on lately? Climate change, immigration rights, civil rights for marginalized communities, a less hawkish foreign policy, and they’ve been markedly softening on trade issues. Oh, and they’venk pretty much established themselves as the party of science, which sounds sensible in a vacuum but in historical context is really unusual. And also a sign that the party is run by the intellectual elite, whereas in the 1970s it was run by unions and many quite devout religious figures. Science wasn’t really an issue in itself.
Like I said, I don’t think there are many actual disagreements on issues between the Democratic elite and the Democratic working class. But there is a big gap in priorities. Climate change comes before jobs, which has caused energy producing states to go deep red and states where a lot of people have college degrees to get bluer. Democrats now don’t want to tax anyone making under $400K per year, which is good for keeping New Yorkers and Californians in the fold but limits their ambitions on social programs. The balance of power seems to have shifted away from the private sector blue collar unions to the yuppies and public sector unions.