No matter how many years of elections the GOP loses, they will still be the preferred instrument of the corporatists and the religious wingnuts. It’s their party; they own it. Although the corporatists will also try to buy the Dems. (Will try? They’re already trying. There’s always some that can be bought.) Lord knows they’ve succeeded before.
Yeah, it took just a few months for the Bushies to turn their backs on that belief. But I’m sure it was a tooth-and-nail fight for the soul of the party.
I know we haven’t. But the thread title says, “Is.” I don’t think we have to argue over what the meaning of ‘is’ is.
We’re talking about the present, because the claim the OP rebuts was made about the present. The Dems won’t always be this relatively free of special interests mucking things up. But are they free from that now? Much more so than either party has typically been, I’d say.
Oh yes, I freely admit that the example of my friend was a long time ago; that’s why I wanted to point out it was before Clinton. I’ve been over here a LONG time, so possibly it’s changed, but I don’t have that impression, and I do try to keep up. Sure, there are issues that cross the boundaries, such as minimum wage and voting rights etc. Before, it was the Vietnam War instead of the Iraqi War. But from what I can tell, you’ve still got your labor interests and your NAACP and the Hispanic bloc in the Southwest and your environmentalists and abortion rights and women’s rights etc, each following a separate agenda in addition to the unifiers. I still get that from what I read, and from what I see when I do travel to the US (not too often these days admittedly, only once this millinnium so far) and from American Dems who show up here in Thailand and fall ito my sphere.
I admit I could be completely wrong, but it’s still the impression I have, and it looks like there are others here with it, too. I haven’t seen anything to convince me that Bush or the new Vietnam War or anything else has done anything to transform the Dems overnight from what they were like for decades.
And although I’m an Independent and always have been, I do vote Democrat, I’m not bashing them. That’s just the way they happen to be, from what I can tell.
Of course its a diverse collection of interests, its a diverse collection of people. Tres duh! Spinning the term as “special interests” is pure Bushwah.
No offense, Sam, but this is GD, and a series of impressions just isn’t good enough here. That’s one thing a good attack machine can do, is give you impressions about the other side without really giving you reasons for them. A few years ago, a genuine war hero ran for President, and by the time the Swifties were through, you’d have thought he made it all up, even if you weren’t quite sure why.
It’s always good to think, “IF I feel this way about this person or group from the news coverage, why is it that I feel that way? What did they actually say, and did it really make sense?”
All your impressions likely add up to is that the right-wing noise machine has been doing their usual fine job of putting out discrediting spin in the MSM, where it often lies unchallenged.
A collection of special interests compared to whom?
Isn’t that how the 2-party system works? By building coalitions until reaching a majority?
If 150 million people not sharing a coherent, single-sentence-stateable political ideology *worries * you, then maybe democracy just isn’t for you, ya know?
Look at it this way: The Libertarian Party is a diverse collection of people, but not a collection of special interests; it has a solid ideological mainstream. Can that be said for either of the two major parties?
I’m thinking it will help them in future elections – not because most Americans are comfortable with gay marriage or even “civil unions,” but because most Americans are by now sick to death of the religious right and anything that smells of it.
