My girlfriend is german and she’s never been interested in politics, but she does want to know a little about the political parties and leanings in this country so that she doesn’t feel completely out of the loop.
Can you fellow dopers help me in this task?
Can you delineate for me the political compass of this country in a clear concise manner, and maybe include examples of their ideology? I’m looking for descriptions of lefts and rights, conservatives and liberals, republicans and democrats and all the good stuff (hopefully I’ll learns omething too ).
Democrats on the left, Republicans on the right. That’s the most basic way of putting it.
Now, to expand on that:
Democrats are traditionally the more liberal of the two parties (one could make the argument that both parties are on the conservative end of the spectrum, but that’s a different ball of wax.) They tend to favor increased gun control, are pro-choice and have traditionally favored social programs like Social Security and Medicare (although the Clinton administration was responsible for welfare reforms that limited availability.)
The Republicans are the conservatives. The Republican Party has been dominated in recent years by both the Religious Right, a group of more fundamentalist Christians, and the neoconservatives, who favor political and social conservatism and an increased military budget (e.g. the missile defense shield.)
Some might say that, in terms of economic policy, Democrats want many broad social welfare programs funded by taxes while Republicans want a few limited social welfare programs and low taxes. Democrats perhaps prefer social welfare to corporate welfare, while Republicans might prefer corporate welfare to social welfare.
History suggests that Republicans are pro-free trade (because of business influence) and Democrats are anti-free trade (because of union influence), but Clinton did lots of pro-free trade stuff while Bush has done some anti-free trade stuff. I’d say both parties are generally pro-free trade, but they both have anti-free trade elements that they occasionally have to cater to.
Republicans like a strong military and a non-interventionist foreign policy; Democrats like a strong military too, but not as strong as the Republicans, and take a more interventionist and multilateral approach. Usually.
Of course, there are counter-examples to everything above. But that’s about as simple as I can put it.
One might note that sociologists (such as Hofstede et al) classify national cultures as “individualistic” or “collectivistic.” That is, whether emphasis is placed on the individual or on the group. By any measurement, the U.S. comes across as the most individualistic country in the world. Thus, when you define the political spectrum in terms of the extent of government involvement, your German girlfriend may well think that U.S. left-wingers are “central”, and right-wingers might be incomprehensible to her.
I personally prefer using a two axis political scale, such as found on this site. Have your girlfriend take the test, and see how see compares against the ratings of many national leaders they give on the site. It uses a left-right scale for economic issues(the further to the right, the less you want the government involved in the economy,) and a vertical axis based on personal restrictions with authoriatarians at top and libertarians at the bottom. I myself rate just to the right of, and a somewhat more libertarian, than President Bush.
One thing that might be helpful in understanding the American political system is that voter turnout is a great deal lower here than in any other modern democracy. In most elections, more than half of the registered voters do not show up to vote, and then there are millions of adults who just never even bother to register. We have a two-party system. Other parties exist, but have wielded virutally no influence for the past few generations. The low turnout is partially caused by the fact that many people feel that neither major party represents their views, and this perspective is held by people with a wide variety of beliefs.
BUsh supporting republicans are our countrys cowards, fully buying into and quaking in fear at every mention of the “threats” that face this country. They have basically been willing to trade everything that has made this country great for the dishonest assurances of a moron.
Democrats are against the moronic decimation of our economy, the pointless killing of our own soldiers, the illegal raping of a sovereign country and its citizenry, and the flagrant lies and misleading statements of the criminals currently in charge.
Yeah.
So Quint Essence, which are you? Why don’t you be less obtuse, and say Democrats = good, Republicans = bad. (:>)
To asnwer the OP, a Libertarian friend summarized American politics like this.
Democrats/left are in favor of social freedoms, such as the right to abortion, gay marriage, etc., but are in favor or restrictions on economic freedoms (taxes to redistribute income, land use restrictions to protect the enviroment, etc.)
Republicans/ right are in favor of economic freedoms, such as the right to eliminating government regulation, lowering taxes and trade barriers etc., but are in favor or restrictions on social freedoms (prohibition of both soft and hard drugs, pro-Life, pro-nuclear family.)
Libertarians - an alternative party that has a sound philosophy but has yet to prove itself as anywhere near a viable political party in the U.S. - are in favor of freedoms for both social and economic freedoms. As a result, they get people from both the right and the left. As you can expect, many of these people disagree, and few libertarians are liberatarians to the same degree. For example, does one want to legalize drugs, and if so which drugs? Does one want to have a national defense and if so how does one define which actions are necessary?
The Libertarians seem to have attracted more than their share of kooks to the party. Its a shame too because the Democrats and Republicans in practice steal each other’s ideas (called being centrist or triangulation) in order to gain new voters. By doing so, they are abandonin their principles with the hope of perpetuating their power. A viable candidate espousing libertarian principles could succeed in this country.
Dogface and Quint, consider that I have officially whomped you upside the head.
This is the General Questions forum. If you want to debate politics or to make nasty statements about any particular politician or party, go to Great Debates. Or to the BBQ Pit, depending on how nasty your statements are.
This thread asks specifically for a clear an concise deliniation. I take that to mean a rational, understandable, non-sectarian description of the U.S. political spectrum. As such, the OP is entitled to rational, understandable, non-secetarian responses. Clear?
There are plenty of threads for one side sniping at the other side elsewhere.
Note: the Dems:left and GOP:right is a recent Big Lie that has become so ingrained that it is actually starting to become true. Traditionally, in no way shape or form does left/right apply to the parties.
If you know anything about the history of Southern US politics you know how incredibly conservative most of their Democratic officials have been. Calling them “conservative” is actually just being polite. Very scary people in many cases.
Many Republicans, esp. in the West and NE are quite liberal. NY state esp. has a long history of liberal Republicans.
But starting in the 1960s, GOP extremist right wing strategists (people who thought Nixon was a moderate) tried to produce a strong party definition along the liberal/conservative axis. So right wingers took over the GOP (apparently permanently) and started the “Democrats are liberals” Big Lie.
This propaganda has been so incredibly successful (the media has been quite helpful in spreading these lies, so you know what’s going on there) that even politicians now believe it. So in the South, Dems are switching over to the GOP. (Unthinkable 30 years ago.) Liberal Republicans are told to go somewhere else. Bob Packwood, in addition to his groping problem, really got into trouble with the GOP because he wasn’t a rapid conservative and was in charge of Senate GOP campaign financing back when. The idea of someone merely “moderate” in such a high position made the politically correct GOP rightists sick.
So, ditch the liberal=Dem, conservative=GOP nonsense. A Big Lie is still a lie.
Interesting about that Political Compass site. I took the questionnaire and was placed just to the left of the middle of the lower-left quadrant, in the company of Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. Hey, I like those guys. Not only that, when it comes to classical music composers, the closest one to my position was Béla Bartók—who just happens to be my favorite composer!
Every few years, the major political parties in the United States restate their party’s platform, usually in conjunction with their national presidential nominating convention.
Maybe too much info here, but what the heck.
To reiterate a bit, the political system in the US is (in practice) two party, not proportional representation. And there are elections on many different levels – national (president), state (governor, senator), and smaller regions (U.S. representative, state legislators, etc.). Also, candidates and officeholders are much stronger than and independent of the party, unlike the European system.
The winner-take-all system means that both parties tend to gravitate as much towards the exact political center of the voters as they can while still retaining a bit of identity. It’s all about geting 51% of the votes, not about having a very loyal following (of whatever size). (In my opinion, this accounts for much of the low voter participation in this country – and I don’t think it’s necessarily an entirely bad thing, but that’s another thread).
And also remember this political center is for whatever area the vote is over. So, using crude ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ labels, a Republican candidate for a Representive from, say, Berkely, CA, will probably be much more liberal than a Democratic Candidate from a Colorado district.
That’s not entirely true. They were conservative in the sense they didn’t want to change their society, but often they were quite supportive of welfare, unions, and so forth - the traditional leftist economic programs. You could say they were sort of like the old Progressive party.
Minor parties have more sway than it sounds of looks like: when one of them does well, it usually invites the big party closer to them to adopt more of their programs and ideas.
In general, the Republican party is a coalition of social conservatives (those wanting to bring religious beliefs to bear in the public arena as well as those who are suspicious of minorities), fiscal conservatives (those supporting balanced budgets), libertarians (those supporting restricted government activity), isolationists, big business (those opposing governmental oversight of commerce and support of employees’ rights as well as tax favors and other concessions to busineses) and certain other special interests such as those opposing restrictions on gun ownership. The interests of these various factions are often in conflict with each other. More recently, the Republican leadership is dominated by a new faction, the military interventionists.
The Democratic coalition is even more broad, but is generally supportive of more individual liberty with more governmental activity to aid those in need and to mitigate the excesses of commercial enterprises, including offering protection of the environment against polluters, protection of employees against employers, protection of minorities against the majority, and the protection of consumers against manufacturers.
The basic realilty about American party politics is that the two major parties are not ideological parties. They are broad coalitions whose only real ideology is to help each other get elected. In fact, from about 1950 to 1980, I would argue that the Democratic and Republican coalitions were nearly identical with regard to the range of conservatives and liberals included in their coalitions.
I don’t think this is true. Except for the modern Republican party, third parties have not generally been successful in getting elected to office, but it is arguable that third parties have often been influential in getting one or another party to adopt its platform or in spoiling an election.
I would say that third parties have acted in spoilers in several presidential elections. The most famous one is, of course, the 1912 election, in which Roosevelt’s Progressive (Bull Moose) party split the Republican vote, putting a Democrat (Woodrow Wilson) in office.
So far as recent presidential elections go, the most successful third parties in terms of votes seem to have been the pro-racist American Independent party (George Wallace) in 1968 and States’ Rights (Dixiecrat, Strom Thurmond) in 1948. Neither of those movements, however, succeeded in affecting the outcome of the election. (You’ll notice that successful third parties are usually personality-centered.)
However, it seems to me that other third-party candidacies, while much less successful than Wallace and Thurmond in getting votes, have acted as successful spoilers, specifically, Ralph Nader (Green party) in 2000 and H. Ross Perot (Reform party) in 1992.
I don’t know if it’s as simple as Democrats=big government, social freedom whereas Republicans=small government, social dictators. You can argue that the Democrats support a lot of restrictions on society: guns, cigarettes, alcohol, affirmative action, that kind of thing. As for big government–look no further than Bush. :rolleyes:
If you go by government size and spending, Clinton was far more “conservative” than Bush. So I tend to agree with the poster who said that there’s no real difference between the two parties.
Republicans tend to feel that less gov’t. intervention is better for commerce and more effective at creating and distributing wealth fairly, whereas Dems tend to view commerce as needing government oversight to ensure that the economy does in fact run optimally and distribute wealth fairly.
Republicans tend to view morality and social cohesion as based on traditional values and (often religious) sources, whereas Dems tend to view morality and social cohesion as being based on the individual’s choice and ethical reasoning.
Then I’d add in specific issues which may or may not need special consideration. For example, Republicans might say that the environment enjoys the best stewardship when resources are privately owned and treated as economic goods, see “Coase theorem”. Dems might say that the state needs to act in aggregating social opinion on how much envirnmental purity is desired, and then attempt to see that level obtain. This is a subset of the commerce distinction.
JS’ description is concise and accurate, except that both sides favor big government when it suits them - Democrats favor big government to reign in business freedoms, and Republicans favor big government to reign in social freedoms or to enforce foreign policy. Traditionally Republicans claimed they were more against big government than Democrats, and this was probably a fair claim, but today they are probably equally reponsible for big government .
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