I think the problem is that the democrats are the “not republicans”. As a “not republican” you can believe in anything that is “not republican”. With the Republican Party growing more and more conservative, the “not republican” party grows stronger. If the Democrat’s to start to frame issues like the Republican Party it would create divides in the party. Why divide your constituency when being “not republicans” works.
Political diction in post-rational America has gone through the looking-glass. Right-winger Romney is called “moderate”, which is now a term of derision among mainstream Republicans.
I feel sympathy for Qin who’s obviously intelligent but is a victim of post-rational propaganda. Sometimes he presents lists of his political heroes. They include people like Teddy Roosevelt who would now be condemned as Marxist by others of his heroes.
Wrong on two grounds.
(A) It’s factually incorrect; depending on definition the “middle” votes about as Democrat as the whole.
(B) You seem to assume that GOP policies favor its constituents, or that voters know which party favor their interests. Wrong on both counts.
The last thing the GOP wants is to actually succeed with its bizarre social agenda. It prefers the consternation caused by “wedge” issues to distract and delude voters.
There is at least some evidence for the birth control argument, insofar as Rick Santorum, a GOP presidential frontrunner, is openly anti-contraception. There’s also the ongoing battle against Planned Parenthood which is ostensibly about abortion (which is about 3% of what PP provides) but closing them down would also severely limit access to birth control and family planning advice (which is the vast, vast majority of what they do). But I digress.
The answer to the OP is that the Democrats have no Grover Norquist and wouldn’t all listen to one if they did.
Nitpick: The last thing GOP party officials and public officials want is, etc. There’s a part of the GOP voter-base that really wants all that – and the GOP can never win without that part.
It’s the current Cycle. Republicans or, the Catholic Church, rather, claims that if they have to pay for someone who MAY want contraceptives, it is against their freedom of religion.
My point is, since when is something that is a CHOICE take away the ability to not chose?
I think this is backwards.
The Republicans are the Not Democrats.
They are reflexively opposed to anything suggested by the Democrats, even if it was originally a Republican idea.
Democrats are traditionally open to discussion and compromise. Modern Republicans are like spoiled children that must have their way.
How can it be that in the capacity of deciding which ideas are the best for the country as a whole the two parties cannot agree on one single thing. Not one. If you are honest in your assessment, you’ll admit that this is by design. The Republican leadership has openly admitted that their goal is to make Obama a one-term president. I thought their goal was supposed to be do things that benefit and improve our country. Having a goal such as theirs presumes that nothing this president will ever do is in the best interest of the country, or is the best available idea at the time.
Come on. Be honest. Admit what’s going on here. It is not an issue of “both sides do it” . One side is doing it.
The Democrats do frame the issues. They wouldn’t be a viable political entity if they didn’t.
Talking about the rich “paying their fair share” or about the “Buffett rule” are certainly framings of the issue of taxation. Talking about a “balanced approach” is a framing of deficit reduction. Even referring to welfare programs as a “safety net” (which is pretty much the universally accepted phrasing) is a framing device.
Just because you agree with the framing (which I largely do in all of those cases) doesn’t mean it isn’t framing.
If you say so.
No, it’s not “factually incorrect”.
Now while it’s true that Republicans tend to have higher incomes than Democrats, and while you might think this is because Democrats are pulling from the low and middle income brackets while Republicans are pulling from the higher-income brackets, the discrepancy is actually because Democrats pull from lowest income brackets more than it is Republicans pulling from the highest income brackets.
On the state level, the “richer” states tend to vote Democrat while your “poorer” states tend to vote Republican. Within “poorer” states, “richer” counties tend to vote Republican while “poorer” counties tend to vote Democrat (as is the case in the South), while within “richer” states, both “richer” and “poorer” counties tend to vote Democrat (as is the case along the west coast and northeast). On the personal level, income is generally positive in its association with being a Republican. In other words, your likelihood of being a Republican increases as your income increases; up to a certain point. Of course, your likelihood of being a Republican as your income level increases is highly dependent on what state you live in. A “rich” person in a “poor” state is far more likely to be a Republican than a “rich” person in a “rich” state. In fact, in “rich” states, voters show very little preference based on income. This is most likely due to the fact that people in “richer” states have higher disposable incomes than do people in “poorer” states, and changes in economic policy (i.e., higher taxes) are not likely to have as big an effect on them as it would someone in a “poorer” state who has less disposable income. It’s all there.
Here’s a graph to kind of illustrate the above and shows voter preference based on income. Note that the west coast and northeast remain mostly Democratic strongholds regardless of income. Simply put, the Democratic party has not been the “party of the middle-class” for a long time now. This is a big reason why Democrats generally struggle to win in the south, midwest and some western states. For most people within these regions, Democratic policies have no tangible benefit or are economically disadvantageous.
You could have just said “People who vote for the GOP are dumb”, as that’s what you apparently meant. Anyway, the same question could be posed as to why certain groups overwhelmingly vote for Democrats even though it’s not in their best interest to do so (i.e., Jews).
Yes, because Lord knows the Democrats don’t try to shore up their base via “wedge” issues.
Uh, what?
He has a point. Republicans, after all, are really really really super-committed to supporting Israel, while many Democrats are only really really super-committed to supporting Israel.
Just what I said. Why do Jews vote overwhelmingly for Democrats when it’s not in their best interests to do so (especially older Jews who remember pre-Roosevelt)?
It’s of course, complete and utter bullshit that Democrats are somehow anti-Jewish.
But that’s aside from the fact that pre-Roosevelt is 1932. How many Jewish people do you think remember politics from 80 years ago? You know they don’t live hundreds of years any more, right?
By “older,” of course you mean that large cohort of Jews born before 1912, who could have voted in a election prior to 1932. Or were you talking about Teddy?
nm
Because I said the Democratic party is anti-Jewish, right? RIGHT‽‽‽
Quite a few, apparently, since older Jewish individuals are a bit more likely to vote Democrat than are younger Jews.
Use your head and take a guess.
First off, I commend you on the use of interrobangs. Did you say that it is against the interests of Jewish people to vote democrat? Why is it against their interests? Specifically.
There aren’t quite a few pre-FDR era people left of any religion.
N.B.: Their interests have nothing to do with Israel’s, if that’s what you’re talking about.
Newspapers? Really? That’s your counter? You’re funny. All the newspapers in the country combined don’t have the influence that Fox does. And that’s assuming that all these newspapers act as propaganda in the sense that Fox does.
Which they don’t, generally; the only newspapers that do are RW organs – WSJ, Washington Times, etc.