# Is the Democratic party headed in the wrong direction?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [April 21, 2011, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187 "2011-04-21T05:15:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@SirRay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirRay)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2011, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/21 "2011-04-21T18:06:39Z")
It’s been mentioned before, but if you simply removed the Republicans from the picture you’d have a fairly balanced US government, almost like, say from the mid-1950s:
In the US Senate, for example, you’d have Conservatives like Ben Nelson and Max Baucus (you could even bring in the Maine Senators on this side if you’d like), Liberals/Progressives like Al Franken and Bernie Sanders (really I not D), and plenty of Middle-of-the Roaders. A full spectrum of views for sensible government…
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2011, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/22 "2011-04-22T03:45:30Z")
> [@Whambulance](#):
>
> I have to concede that you and I have a completely different vision of the role of government, but I will give it a whirl.
Government should be non-coercive? Note: I don’t mean politics, I mean government in its administrative functions: Should police negotiate with criminals? Should teachers negotiate with students? Should the IRS man make deals with taxpayers? Should he take bribes not to collect taxes?
> [@](#):
>
> It would absolutely be better to encourage responsibility rather than take it. A government choosing to take responsibility at its surmise that the people weren’t, is no longer led by the people.
OK, I encourage responsibility by being personally irresponsible. Look how good I am!
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### Author:  [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2011, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/23 "2011-04-22T05:00:36Z")
> [@Whambulance](#):
>
> The reason I am posting this is that it occured to me a couple days ago that much of the left agenda appears to increasingly encourage a lack of personal responsibility.
>
> Stimulus packages, even bigger government, more extensions of healthcare to those that cannot or will not contribute, more entitlement projects, extensions of unemployment compensation, support for more government and union benefits packages & more projects rewarding illegal immigrants and minorities
I have to ask, why pick on the Democratic Party for these things? Look at your list. Stimulus packages. Which party has passed more stimulus packages in the past ten years, the Republicans or the Democracts? Bigger government. What happened to the size of government when Bush was President and the Republicans controlled Congress? Extensions of healthcare. Which party passed the prescription drug benefit and even offered cash bribes to make sure it got enough votes? Entitlement projects. I’m not quite sure what this is supposed to mean, but you get the idea.
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### Author:  [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2011, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/24 "2011-04-22T13:19:10Z")
> [@Whambulance](#):
>
> Stimulus packages, even bigger government, more extensions of healthcare to those that cannot or will not contribute
This Onion piece was about Mitt Romney, a Republican, but I figure the same joke applies here: [Mitt Romney Haunted By Past Of Trying To Help Uninsured Sick People](http://www.theonion.com/articles/mitt-romney-haunted-by-past-of-trying-to-help-unin,20097/)
> [@The Onion](#):
>
> BELMONT, MA—Though Mitt Romney is considered to be a frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, the national spotlight has forced him to repeatedly confront a major skeleton in his political closet: that as governor of Massachusetts he once tried to help poor, uninsured sick people.
>
> Romney, who signed the state’s 2006 health care reform act, has said he “deeply regrets” giving people in poor physical and mental health the opportunity to seek medical attention, admitting that helping very sick people get better remains a dark cloud hovering over his political career, and his biggest obstacle to becoming president of the United States of America.
😛
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### Author:  [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2011, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/25 "2011-04-22T14:02:21Z")
> [@Whambulance](#):
>
> The reason I am posting this is that it occured to me a couple days ago that much of the left agenda appears to increasingly encourage a lack of personal responsibility.
Talking about “personal responsibility” makes more sense when the unemployment rate is low. If someone refuses to do his or her homework, is disruptive in class, skips school, drops out of high school, and has illegitimate children, one can talk about personal responsibility.
When someone loses his or her job during the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, looks high and low for a job, and cannot find _anything_ else, lecturing to that person on personal responsibility is unhelpful.
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### Author:  [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2011, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/26 "2011-04-22T18:30:50Z")
The Dems don’t push an agenda, they spend their time reacting to the right wing agenda . Walker and Snyder have forced the Dems to mobilize around 2 states , Michigan and Wisconsin. They are consuming a lot of the energy. They can not ignore what the Repubs are doing.
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### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2011, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/27 "2011-04-22T19:18:47Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> Name any ten at random.
>
> When conservatives talk about “personal responsibility” it’s just code for “I don’t want to pay my taxes,” anyway. Basically, it’s doublespeak for people who want to _avoid_ their social responsibilities.
Pretty much everything conservatives say is code for “I don’t want to pay taxes”
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2011, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/28 "2011-04-22T23:26:10Z")
Liberals aren’t against personal responsibility. They are pro-societal responsibility. You can have both.
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### Author:  [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/29 "2011-04-23T02:02:13Z")
> [@Whambulance](#):
>
> I agree with much of what you say about corporations, but you act as though there are no Democratic run corporations tossing people out of work to evade environmental laws and industry regulation. You can add tax evasion to that list as well.
>
> I would like your perspective though on how “Repubs destroyed the economy with their twisted Libertarian beliefs”?
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/science/earth/22ander.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/science/earth/22ander.html) There are Liberal run corps. They are rare and don’t reward the execs like right wing corps who think they own the world. It does not have to be this way. It is just easy money being a corporate looter. They are gone when the bill comes.
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### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/30 "2011-04-23T03:14:18Z")
The two corporations that have benefited the most from the policies of the Democrats since Obama was elected are arguably General Electric and Goldman Sachs. Jeff Immelt of GE is now an adviser to the President, and Goldman-Sachs has had a number of prominent Democrats move through its doors.
Furthermore, in 2008 Goldman Sachs gave a million dollars to Obama’s campaign, and overall gave almost three times as much money to Democrats as to Republicans.
Boy, that sure paid off well for them, didn’t it?
Here’s the problem with Democrats: They used to be about protecting the poor and disadvantaged. They had an actual message and a political stance that was somewhat consistent. But the party has been completely hijacked by its fairly narrow source of funding - big labor, lawyers, and corporate fatcats. As a result, the Democrats now find themselves defending wages for people who make twice the national average, to be paid for by taxpayers who make less. That’s not progressive - it’s regressive. They find themselves bailing out corporations like GM and giving tax subsidies for rich people to buy $40,000 Chevy Volts, and instituting plans to encourage wealthier people to buy brand new cars while mandating that the used cars that poorer people rely on are destroyed, driving up prices in the used car market.
Democrats are no longer champions of the poor. They couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the dirt-poor people in Appalachia or Louisiana. They’d rather expend the taxpayer’s money propping up salaries and gold-plated benefits of public union employees and providing fancy trains for wealthy commuters. They’d rather spend their time trying to impose schemes for taxing energy, which disproportionately hurts poor people.
Look at the stimulus package: That money went largely to union members, public employees, and other Democrat constituents. Rather than get the money in play fast, they intentionally delayed infrastructure programs to ensure that the work would only go to union members, freezing out poor workers and diluting the beneficiary effect of the stimulus.
Even the health care plan, which does have some benefit for poorer working class people, was put at risk and watered down because the Democrats backed off taxing the ‘gold-plated’ health care plans of union members to help fund it.
In the meantime, the social security and medicare benefits that the poor working class disproportionately depend on are in danger, and the Democrats are doing nothing about it.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/31 "2011-04-23T04:08:23Z")
Republicans should take personal responsibility for the enormous benefits they receive and for the people they put out of work and for the damage they’ve done to America, and pay their fair share of taxes. They expect the poor to support them through taxes, but God forbid they be asked to pay taxes themselves.
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### Author:  [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/32 "2011-04-23T04:35:08Z")
> [@Whambulance](#):
>
> I agree with much of what you say about corporations, but you act as though there are no Democratic run corporations tossing people out of work to evade environmental laws and industry regulation. You can add tax evasion to that list as well.
>
> I would like your perspective though on how “Repubs destroyed the economy with their twisted Libertarian beliefs”?
Greenspan and the Repubs were proud of saying the financial sector and corporations are self governing. They believed if you left them alone, they would wind up acting in the national good. How dumb was that? Even Greenspan was able to admit that was ignorant of the greed and plunder that exists in the capitalistic heart. But we dumped Glass/Steagal at their urging and the theft went on at a scale never dreamed of before. They lied . stole, and then helped themselves to the treasury. it was a horror show. Those pricks should be in jail, not penthouses and mansions.
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/33 "2011-04-23T10:32:56Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> When conservatives talk about “personal responsibility” it’s just code for “I don’t want to pay my taxes,” anyway. Basically, it’s doublespeak for people who want to _avoid_ their social responsibilities.
It is also code for, “I don’t like regulations that get in the way of extracting money from the public through any means necessary,” including fraud, deception and endangering public safety.
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### Author:  [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/34 "2011-04-23T13:23:00Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> The two corporations that have benefited the most from the policies of the Democrats since Obama was elected are arguably General Electric and Goldman Sachs. Jeff Immelt of GE is now an adviser to the President, and Goldman-Sachs has had a number of prominent Democrats move through its doors.
>
> Furthermore, in 2008 Goldman Sachs gave a million dollars to Obama’s campaign, and overall gave almost three times as much money to Democrats as to Republicans.
>
> Boy, that sure paid off well for them, didn’t it?
>
> Here’s the problem with Democrats: They used to be about protecting the poor and disadvantaged. They had an actual message and a political stance that was somewhat consistent. But the party has been completely hijacked by its fairly narrow source of funding - big labor, lawyers, and corporate fatcats.
You could have added the entertainment and pornography industries. As long one needs vast sums of money in order to be elected the Democrats will need to get their money where they can.
We need public financing of political campaigns. This exists in many European countries, and it works fine. Unfortunately, the recent Supreme Court decision on campaign financing pushed the United States in the opposite direction.
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### Author:  [@Lanzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lanzy)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/35 "2011-04-23T14:12:51Z")
What America needs is a second party.
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### Author:  [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/36 "2011-04-23T16:22:22Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> Pretty much everything conservatives say is code for “I don’t want to pay taxes”
Yet they pay taxes. The conservatives wind up helping the wealthy not pay taxes. Misguided idiots are being used by the rich and can not figure it out.
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/37 "2011-04-23T21:51:25Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> Democrats are no longer champions of the poor. They couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the dirt-poor people in Appalachia or Louisiana. They’d rather expend the taxpayer’s money propping up salaries and gold-plated benefits of public union employees and providing fancy trains for wealthy commuters. They’d rather spend their time trying to impose schemes for taxing energy, which disproportionately hurts poor people.
>
> Look at the stimulus package: That money went largely to union members, public employees, and other Democrat constituents. Rather than get the money in play fast, they intentionally delayed infrastructure programs to ensure that the work would only go to union members, freezing out poor workers and diluting the beneficiary effect of the stimulus.
1. Democrats are not monolithic.
2. When have conservative parties ever cared especially much about the poor?
3. Labor-movement Democrats want the poor to become the middle-income working class. Have some labor unions turned into minority-of-the-workforce clubs that represent themselves & not the general populace? Sure. Are some organizers still trying to expand union membership? Yep.
I have a lot of frustration with the present unions, but to claim that the conservative movement is more on the poor’s side is almost as for a medieval Jew to claim that because the rabbinate are money-grubbing oafs we should support the Cossacks.
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### Author:  [@J\_Cubed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/J_Cubed)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2011, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/38 "2011-04-23T23:30:08Z")
> [@Whambulance](#):
>
> The reason I am posting this is that it occured to me a couple days ago that much of the left agenda appears to increasingly encourage a lack of personal responsibility. …
It’s easy to heckle a weak batter when you were born on third base. There are plenty of rich white citizens who lack personal responsibility; they just get more leeway from the system. And personal responsibility isn’t really effective against cancer or the complete domestic disappearance of entire economic sectors.
I don’t understand your objection to health care. Sure, the current law isn’t perfect, but it’s essentially Bob Dole’s old plan, and the Republican legislators didn’t attempt to improve it, just destroy it. And let’s not forget that it was commercial interests and their Republican lapdogs that have made virtues out of overconsumption and instant gratification. That’s probably the biggest factor in health care costs, right there. A cultural abdication of personal responsibility, cheered on by every right-wing pundit and politician.
Do you take personal responsibility for testing the food and water you give to your children? Do you take personal responsibility for verifying that all vehicles traveling near you meet or exceed your personal safety standard? What is your schedule for checking each industrial plant in your vicinity to make sure they aren’t imposing negative externalities on your or your community for their private gain? I go on Second Wednesdays.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2011, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/39 "2011-04-24T02:01:30Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> I’m not aware of any far left influences in the Democratic party. Moderate conservative is about as far left as it gets.
[And yet people do think they **see** things.](http://www.thenation.com/article/159929/how-socialists-built-america)
> [@](#):
>
> \*\*How Socialists Built America \*\*
> John Nichols
> April 13, 2011 | This article appeared in the May 2, 2011 edition of The Nation.
>
> _This article is adapted from_ The “S” Word: A Short History of an American Tradition… Socialism, \*published in March by Verso. \*
>
> If there’s one constant in the elite national discourse of the moment, it is the claim that America was founded as a capitalist country and that socialism is a dangerous foreign import that, despite our unwarranted faith in free trade, must be barred at the border. This most conventional “wisdom”—increasingly accepted at least until the recent grassroots mobilizations in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and Maine—has held that everything public is inferior to everything private, that corporations are always good and unions always bad, that progressive taxation is inherently evil and that the best economic model is the one that allows the wealthy to gobble up as much of the Republic as they choose before anything trickles down to the great mass of Americans. Rush Limbaugh informs us regularly that proposals to tax people as rich as he is for the purpose of providing healthcare for kids and jobs for the unemployed are “antithetical” to the nation’s original intent and that Barack Obama’s reforms are “destroying this country as it was founded.”
>
> When Obama offered tepid proposals to organize a private healthcare system in a more humane manner, Sean Hannity of Fox charged that “the Constitution was shredded, thwarted, the rule of law was passed aside.” Newt Gingrich said the Obama administration was “prepared to fundamentally violate the Constitution” and was playing to the “30 percent of the country [that] really is [in favor of] a left-wing secular socialist system.”
>
> In 2009 Sarah Palin raised similar constitutional concerns, about Obama’s proposal to develop a system of “universal energy building codes” to promote energy efficiency. “Our country could evolve into something that we do not even recognize, certainly that is so far from what the founders of our country had in mind for us,” a gravely concerned Palin informed Hannity, who responded with a one-word question. “Socialism?”
>
> “Well,” she said, “that is where we are headed.”
>
> Actually, it’s not. Palin is wrong about the perils of energy efficiency, and she’s wrong about Obama. The president says he’s not a socialist, and the country’s most outspoken socialists heartily agree. Indeed, the only people who seem to think Obama displays even the slightest social democratic tendency are those who imagine that the very mention of the word “socialism” should inspire a reaction like that of a vampire confronted with the Host.
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### Author:  [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2011, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-democratic-party-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/579187/40 "2011-04-24T02:47:45Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> The two corporations that have benefited the most from the policies of the Democrats since Obama was elected are arguably General Electric and Goldman Sachs. Jeff Immelt of GE is now an adviser to the President, and Goldman-Sachs has had a number of prominent Democrats move through its doors.
Ahem, Sam, got a cite for this rant?
AIG and by extension Goldman Sachs was bailed out by Bush - long before Obama was elected and before he assumed the Presidency. GE Capital, the financial services division of GE, was granted entry to TARP in the fall of 2008.
Timeline:
September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection
October 3, 2008, TARP program signed into law by President Bush
October 28, 2008, Goldman Sachs gets TARP funds
November 4, 2008, Obama wins the election
> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> the social security and medicare benefits that the poor working class disproportionately depend on are in danger, and the Democrats are doing nothing about it.
While this \*\*\*may \*\*\*be true, it \*\*\*is \*\*\*the Republicans that are attacking it.
Let’s not go line thru line for the rest of your post since it reads like a page out of Rush.
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