I fucking hate the democrats!

Yes I am a liberal, but yes I hate the Democrats.

I have come to realize this just recently with John Kerry’s inability to position himself as a viable cantidate.

Now, I believe that Kerry is our best hope for America, but really, what the hell do Democrats stand for anyway?

I am so sick of how Democrats have been the Anti-Republican party. We need a fucking vision, folks. The Republican vision is pretty clear to me. But what do the Democrats stand for? The Republicans chastize the Dems for not being pro-business, and what do they do? They sort of mix pro-business ideas into the mix. Republicans are big on Ideology, and less so big on details. The Democrats are only about certain positions. Let me give you an example of what Democrats could be.

What is the platform? Here’s what a Democratic platform could be.

Pro-helthcare. Sure Democrats want to reform healthcare, but why? Because too many Americans lack adequate healtcare. Sure that’s a bad thing, and we all agree, but there is something lacking. What we need is an ideological reason for wanting to have this. Not because it is simply a problem that needs to be fixed. The Republicans have their ideas of how society should be, but the Democrats only want to solve problems. What they need is a fundemental ideology of what America should be that isn’t defined by what the Republicans want. Here’s an example. Democrats want healthcare fixed, because they believe that being healthy is a fundemental human right along with freedom of speech and press. I don’t know how people would react to this, but I think its true.

Poverty. Democrats want to aleviate poverty. Why do they want to do this? Because it is a problem of our society. We all know it is a problem that causes many others. Why should we want to alleviate poverty. Maybe the Democrats could state that it is their belief that the government should be responsible for maintaining a minimum standard of living for every American. They could state that they believe that if you have a normal sized family, the parents shouldn’t have to work more than 40 hours a week to lead a happy life. These general ideas are missing from the Democrat’s platform, and that’s why most people who ideologically line up with the Democrats aren’t too enthused by their efforts.

War. John Kerry was against the Iraq war, sort of, but since a lot of Americans are disatisfied with the way Iraq is going now, he has yet to capitalize. As much as I hate to say it, Tucker Carlson said something the other day that was right. This war is going to be looked at as an important part of this election. Maybe not now, but in ten years it will be so. This should be a debate of ideas of where the country is headed. John Kerry has yet to say concretely, in terms of what the common man can understand what is ideologically wrong about how the country is going about the Iraq war and how his personal beliefs would change that. Sure we know he believes in Internation cooperation, but how will he get it?

A lot of people are afraid of what the Republican vision for America is, but what is the Democratic vision. We need not only to prove that we are against GWB’s vision, but also that we have new ideas about what American life should be and what we think will be helpful

I honestly can’t blame people for not trusting Democrats with the money. Without any certain ideology to focus our efforts on we tend to spend money on pet projects with little aim. Our welfare system is a mess and we have no idea how to fix it. Why don’t we create jobs instead of giving money out? Economically it makes sense to give out money to the poor, but why not spend a little more and have things accomplished? We are a rich nation, and the 200 billion that was spent in Iraq could be used to build infrastructure, or aid in the enrichment of our education and communities.

We should have our own moralisitic ideas of where our fucking country should be! I liked that about John Edwards, because he would always talk about how hard people have it, and then he would say how it is wrong that the rich don’t have to do it. Maybe its about time that we say that the American dream is broken, and until it gets fixed, we should take care of our people. The income gap is getting bigger and the possibilities to make it through hard work and ingenuity is dimishing. Maybe its time we reevaluate whether equal opportunity instead of equality is such a good idea? I don’t know, but there are lots of big ideas that we need to face now, and the Republicans have their stance on this, and the Democrats don’t.

Let’s go back to the Democratic party of FDR, JFK, and LBJ.

FDR had some ideas. His new deal was something that resonated with Americans. It was the idea that the state should have some sort of responsibility other than creating a level playing field. The idea was that unbridled capitalism needed some tweaking.

JFK and LBJ had many other things, and I don’t want to use LBJ as a good example, but they both stood for civil rights. Against heavy opposition they said, “This is the right thing, and we should stand for it”

What do we have now? John Kerry stands for some things. He is against GWB’s many disastrous policies, as any democrat would be. He offers his own ideas. But to what end? Where is he going to take us with his ideas. If there ever was a time to have a debate on the new direction of this country, we should have it. The one area that he satisfies my desires is on the issue of energy. He starts with ideology on this. We can’t continue to rely on foreign energy. We have to invent our way out of it.

But on poverty he offers things to alleviate them, but no end-goal.

This election, if any election should be based on two visions for America. John Kerry’s only vision is simply not bush.

So yeah. There is much dissapointment in America right now, but the point of politicians is to speak for the people and even articulate ideas that they may not be able to formulate, but speak to a general feeling that they have. That’s why ideology works in politics. Let’s look at communism. There was the group that looked at it logically and said, “You know, a system like this would actually be better.” What made it so popular with the masses was the ideology. The common man wasn’t really able to articulate his dissatisfaction or what it all meant, but when someone came along and said, “This is wrong and it doesn’t have to be this way,” they thought, “you know, I sort of feel that way too. I don’t like the way things are, and I want it to change” It didn’t matter how, they just wanted a new idea of how things should be.

There are many dissatisfied Americans when it comes to the Republican vision of America, but we have no idea of what it all means. We need someone to capitalize on this feeling with new visions of what America should be. John Kerry does a little of this, but I think not nearly enough. I think the preaching of what an ideal Amerca would be works much better, than demonstrating the technicalities of how it will operate. The details are important for those that wish to scrutinize. And everyone will want some details at some point, but the driving force should be a new ideology and a goal. We are a very goal-oriented people. 20 different goals of what America should be is not what people are looking for. Our goal should be a new America that is equitable, with these other plans as merely a supporting structure.
I wish I had John Kerry’s ear… These aren’t such radical ideas. All he has to say is that America is on the wrong track. He has done that, but what is the right track? Don’t be fucking afraid to say what you think. That is the reason why he isn’t really sticking to the voters. He comes off as a good guy with good ideas, but he has no new vision of what America should be instead of shouldn’t be. Its easy for me. A redefinition of what we see as our rights as Americans. Education should be a right, and the right to live a happy, healthy life. Most Americans don’t believe they are going to live out the American dream. Sure, they may believe that it is still possible, but most just want happy lives and happy families. You offer that to them as a basic right, and they will connect. Its pretty simple.

In a way it will be good for Democrats if John Kerry looses. I think that John Edwards has many of these ideas and he can distill them into a vision for America that most people really connect with. If GWB wins, more damage will be done, and this rhetoric will connect even more with the voters. Hopefully this happens if John Kerry looses. If he wins, I am not so sure what that means for our country, and that’s the problem. Nobody really knows where we will go. We know where we won’t go, but that’s not enough. I am sure things will get better, but nobody will know what it all means, or what it is for.

Come on, John, stop talking about Vietnam, and George Bush. Bush bashing should only come into the discussion when he wants to make the point about how it is the wrong direction for America. But you can’t just say something is wrong without saying equally how something is right.

Trivial I know, but:

loses! If John Kerry loses. One o

Do we really need yet another party-political thread in the Pit?

November cannot come around too fucking soon.

:rolleyes:

I’m sticking by my prediction of a 400+ Kerry EV blowout. The Democratic party will have plenty of time to develop a vision when they win by a huge landslide on November 3rd.

I reiterate:

  • The Democratic turnout will be sky-high due to the anger over Bush. The most Democratic-favorable pollsters, Zogby and Rasmussen, use the same turnout model as in 2000 as far as I know. The rest all vastly, vastly overestimate Republicans by huge margins that have never been witnessed in recent election history save perhaps 1994. So add in +3 for Democrats and take -2 from Republicans for a model of 42% Democrats, 32% Republicans, the rest independents.

If you normalized poll numbers, you will find that Bush got negative bounces from the convention. On Rasmussen he was up 48-45. Now he’s tied (today’s Rasmussen poll is clearly an outlier).

Someone said that the sheeple will turn out for him. Well, when it comes to complacent sheeple vs. angry goatsies, the goatsies win everyday.

That alone means that Kerry is leading by at least 5 points right now.

  • Democratic 527s will outspend Republican 527s by at least $150-300 million. Case closed.

  • Kerry has an excellent debate record.

At this point, I’m just wondering if Kerry will win Wyoming or not.

I’m expecting Bush to win and hoping he won’t. Whoever is running Kerry’s campaign needs to get more advertisement on, for one, ESP bloody N. There’s a rather substantial demographic watching that, ESPN2 and its ilk every night, and so far I see more advertisements for Labatt Blue than for Kerry.

Hell, I haven’t seen much of any advertisement for Kerry on any channel. It’d be nice if the Kerry people actually gave a thought to advertising in what is, from my experience, more than nominally populated with democrats (Radford University has a Democrat Club and an Activist Club, but no Republican Club. I’ve seen more than a few anti-bush bumper stickers, too).

So in sum … they better start spending, and soon. Time is running out.

What an excellent, excellent post! You have summed up exactly why I’ve been a Republican all my adult life! Republicans have ideas about how society should function; what sort of values it should have; how crime should be dealt with; etc. And Democrats simply oppose whatever it is that Republicans are for. The Democrat party is a reactionary party, not a visionary party, and since I agree with most of what Republicans believe to be the right thing to do, I classify myself as Republican.

But I do believe some good comes from the left. Women’s rights, racial equality, and gay rights among them…even though I often think that good could be accomplished in a less off-putting and illogical way. (Take women’s rights for example: In the early years of women’s rights, you were considered a sexist bigot if you said anything (pregnancy excepted) to indicate there were any difference whatever between men and women. And in the cause of trying to eliminate racism, news reports would omit the race of the suspect when a crime occurred…giving the suspect’s height, weight, clothing, etc. and leaving out the fact that he was black…leading of course to lots of false leads and unsolved crimes.)

But by and large, I believe Republicans stand for something. You can count on what they want and you can believe in what they say they want for society. I agree in the main with their vision but many people do not, and that’s fine. Perhaps a more liberal type of society would be best. But there is no definition to it. It simply opposes Republicanism in whatever way it thinks it can, and it’s goals and beliefs are murky and disorganized and they change with the winds of opinion polls.

How long have you been voting? I agree with you that that is how things are now, but until Reagan (to a lesser extent, Goldwater) the Republicans were the “me too” party. It is freaking bizzare to see how the tables have turned a complete 180 in that regard. Merkwurdigliebe is right, until the Dems get a charismatic leader to set a clear and unified agenda, the only way they will get back in power is if the Republicans screw it up, and I would not put it past us.

Starving Artist,

I have to agree with you a lot on that last post. Although my ideas and your ideas of what society should be like are probably very different, I think you are very right on your reasons to not like democrats based on not having a vision.

Democrats don’t like to be called liberal, they like to be called progressive. If we are so fucking progressive, why the hell can’t we realize what is at stake? Why is are the Republicans always so unified? They all agree on the basic premise of what the Republican vision of America should be. Democrats only want to disagree with Republicans, so it has come down to that.

We don’t need to preach socialism, but we need a progressive vision for America. You know the only person I can remember in recent times that came close to that idea was John Edwards. Howard Dean was the king of reactionism. He simply just took it to a new level. Sure it was necessary at the time, but above all of the criticism there has to be some kind of hope. We need to decide what kind of society we want to live in because the Republicans damn sure know what they want. Republicans want things to go backwards. Since we are the ones who want to go foward, its a little harder to pitch that and there needs to be a definition.

All Kerry has to say is that he believes that America should have certain values of what is right and wrong economically. It is wrong to make someone work 3 jobs to support a normal family with normal expenses. You should be able to have a family with both parents working 40 hours a week and be able to send your kids to college if they are willing to work during their college years.

That’s not fucking socialism, but its a vision that people would agree with and really take to heart, would they not? After you stress that enough the details become less important. You have to be a party that is greater than the sum of its parts. That is why people agree with the democrats on the issues but still don’t vote for them. You have to buy the whole package. You don’t want to vote for the party of "Medicare improvement, Corporate Responsibilty, and higher minimum wage as much as you want to vote for the party of economic fairness. Fairness is a huge deal to a lot of people. The Republicans define fair as equal opportunity. We need to become the party of equality.

Now I am not going to say that the American dream doesn’t exist anymore. There is still a lot of opportunity for advancement. But who wouldn’t agree that everyone should have a right to a decent living and a decent life if they work full-time. We’re not talking luxury, the democrats should say that there is a baseline above which nobody should fall, and in such a rich society it is wrong to have that.

These aren’t radical ideas, you can still be rich if you want to. But we just shouldn’t have such PROFOUND poverty. How about saying that instead of saying that we should raise the minimum wage? Sure people know that we want to raise it, but they don’t know exactly why and how it fits into the bigger plan.

In response to Muad’Dib,

I agree that the only way we’ll gain power is if the Republicans screw up. That is basically what is happening now. Say what you will about GWB, but a majority of Americans aren’t happy with the way the country is going now. But Kerry is STILL running neck and neck with GWB. You know why? Not because of the swift boat veterans, not because he is stiff, but because he has no easily distillable visions for America. He’s got the vision for energy. That’s good, but that’s about it. I follow politics very closely too. This whole veteran crap is ridiculous. Get over it Kerry, everyone who cared that you were a veteran doesn’t care anymore. Your character passes the test. You don’t have to be a saint/patriot to be president. You just gotta be a guy with some good ideas, a vision, and an ability to communicate them to America. Just come up with a vision to oppose the Republican’s.

But see, the democrats have had all the opportunities in the world to rethink our positions. We should be the strongest that we’ve ever been, considering how GWB is the greatest disaster for Democrats since… well hoover? I don’t know but he’s really bad for us. What the hell do we come up with? Just a few ideas. You know what’s going to happen if Kerry wins? There will be a shift in the Republican Party power structure. I imagine that it will revolve around McCain. I guarantee you if Bush loses he’ll run in 2008. Why else has he been the lapdog for GWB who he hated in 2000?

My dear Democrats, I know you all loved Howard Dean, but he had little vision either. We have all the ideas we need, we just have to put them in a way that makes them seem the morally right thing to do. Its not so hard…

Muad’Dib, I first became aware of this flip-floppery on the part of the Democrats during the run up to the 1968 election between Nixon and Humphrey. I specifically remember Humphrey defending our action in Vietnam and explaining why we were right in being there, and then doing a complete and obvious 180 after Johnson declined to run for re-election. Nixon claimed he had a plan to get us out of the war, and to get us out in such a way that South Vietnam maintained it’s independence. This sounded pretty reasonable to me. Humphrey and his cohorts immediately assailed the plan as taking too long and being too costly, and began to claim that Vietnam was a mistake, we never should have been there in the first place, and that we needed to get out of Vietnam as quickly as possible. This was three weeks after I had seen him on television justifying the war and claiming it was necessary and good. The difference? Johnson wasn’t running, Humphrey was…and he needed to oppose Nixon even if it meant doing a 180 from what he’d been saying three weeks before, and most, if not all, the Democrats in Congress and around the country eagerly joined him.

I thought at the time that the way Nixon wanted to extricate us sounded like the right thing to do, and that since Humphrey, et. al. had completely reversed themselves and were saying the opposite of what they’d been saying for years, that they had no real convictions of their own and all they were trying to do was oppose the Republicans. And this impression has stayed with me, and been bolstered by Democrat behavior, ever since.

Merkwurdigliebe, why don’t you run for office? You sound much more like a Democrat I could get behind than any other I know of.

:wink:

So basically, the OP is pissed at the Democrats because they are insufficiently left-wing.

Tough luck. Vote for Nader. Then suffer for another four years of Bush.

Merkwurdigliebe, I had the impression from Kerry’s acceptance speech that he defines his vision of what he wants to see happen in this country as a return to “American values” and not just partisan values. He said as much at the end of his acceptance speech:

He describes his plans for the country in general terms in the last half of his speech and then he adds this:

If that doesn’t answer your questions, I’m not sure what you are wanting.

If you want to read the entire acceptance speech, you can find it many places including this site:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5552784/

I did find his speech to be not so much anti-Republican or anti-Conservative or even anti-Bush. In fact, the only time he mentioned Bush specifically was in a favorable light. But it definitely was anti-Bush policies and then some. I see nothing wrong with that at a time when the Bush Administration has made terrible choices that have many solid Conservatives concerned, left our country as divided as it has been in at least thirty years, and made shambles of our reputation in the rest of the world.

If anyone wants to know why Kerry would be better at mending our relationships with our Allies, you have only to ask people from other countries.

Pax

I don’t know that this is a uniquely Democratic problem. I think the ‘problem’ is simply that the country itself is centrist, but the people who drive elections are right and left wing. It just so happens that the Democrat’s ‘base’ is further removed from where the mainstream of the country is than is the Republican ‘base’.

But both parties are guilty of violating their own principles for expediency. Look at the Republicans - the party of small government has now presided over the most ‘liberal’ administration since at least Jimmy Carter. Spending is up across the board - not just the war, but things like the Department of Education (80% increase over 4 years).

If the Republicans had lost four years ago, you’d hear the same handwringing from them, for the same reasons. But success allows people to look the other way.

And here I’ll make a fearless prediction: If Kerry is elected, it’ll be business as usual. Sure, he’ll try to enact some lefty proposals as a sop to his ‘base’ - proposals that everyone knows will be DOA when they hit congress. There will be much complaining about ‘gridlock’, but in the end the government will chug along pleasing constituents and the center. There may be some changes around the margins, and Kerry may get to move some projects that don’t have any real constituencies with an axe to grind to stop him. But that’s about it. His ‘base’ will get mad at him, and in the next election another 3rd party challenger will rise up and get some substantial support.

Silencing the opposition?

Wonder if anyone will archive this for Nov 3rd.

No Minty Green,

The Democratic Party is sufficiently left-wing enough for me, its just that there is no ideology to get behind that ties in all of the positions. We have offer a vision for america, not just our individual plans. That’s why Reagan was so popular because he had a vision. Bush has something of a vision. Kerry has plans. That’s not enough for a lot of people. I vote based on who will do what I think is right for America. That means I vote for the Dems. But I would like to have the assurance that there is a larger plan that I agree with too.

I’m not picking on you, this is just an example of something I’ve seen a lot and had a comment about the idea. Everytime I see something like this I think, “self-fulfilling prophesy.” I’m wondering if part of the problem isn’t that the base is just too darn cynical. Maybe we need to rally ourselves to hope. Maybe it’ll rub off.

dre2xl, do you have any good cites for what you’re saying about the polls? I’m not challenging you (I hope you’re correct), and I know that cites are really not required in the pit, but I’ve seem similar claims elsewhere and I’d really like to know if there’s anything to this.

Why on earth do you need a “larger plan”? And what might that “larger plan” be? The New Deal, Part II? The Greater Society? Sorry, but we’re not living in the 1930s or the 1960s, and there is no great need or desire for radical societal transformation.