Author Topic: What does the democratic party stand for?  (Read 1660 times)

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Offline Id82

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What does the democratic party stand for?
« on: August 06, 2018, 11:03:13 pm »
 I've been listening to The Wilderness by John Favreau which is a great documentary that functions as a post mordem to the democrats of 2016 and where do they go from there.
A big topic that comes up when swing voters are interviewed is what do the democrats stand for?
Now I can say that that is easy. They're the party of personal liberty and equality and fairness, but it seems a lot of people have a different opinion of how democrats should go about this message.
It seems Republicans have taken a more focused message. The party of low taxes and anti immigration. They have embraced their more libertarian and authoritarian side. I feel this makes their ideas simpler and more stream lined to beat into voters heads. What can the democratic party do?
When Favreau talked to voters that voted for Trump in 2016 but Obama in 2012, they come up with different opinions as to where the party should go. One person says it's becoming too PC and it needs to become more centered, while another says that the party isn't left enough that it needs to become more socialist, and this I feel is a huge problem. Because I feel they could lose a ton of voters depending on which direction the party tries to sway. It also doesn't help that the Repiblicans can easily paint democrats as high taxes and open borders, I feel that can easily scare away any moderate voters to the their side.
What's the best message that the democratic party can make to bring in the most voters and unify the party. Because it seems difficult.
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Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: What does the democratic party stand for?
« Reply #1 on: August 07, 2018, 03:43:43 am »
Not an American here, but what you guys call socialist, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders, aren't any more "socialist" than FDR's new deal and one of the big problems with centrists is they have trouble articulating what they are for, a Republican or a Libertarian could just as easily claim to be for equality, freedom and fairness. And they have a tendency to follow conservative parties to the right in their quest for consensus, also to appease their special interest groups who fund them.

The problem I see with centrist parties worldwide is that there adherence to neoliberal economics is just as blinkered as any Trotskyite or Anarchist's adherence to their own respective ideologies, maybe more so as they dare not speak their ideologies name.

Offline Id82

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Re: What does the democratic party stand for?
« Reply #2 on: August 07, 2018, 11:17:19 am »
Unfortnately the far right stance that the Republican party has taken is forcing the democratic party to the center. But should democrats play it safe and be the center party, but not be clear ehat they stand for? Or should they go further left and risk alienating voters?
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Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: What does the democratic party stand for?
« Reply #3 on: August 07, 2018, 04:53:47 pm »
Unfortnately the far right stance that the Republican party has taken is forcing the democratic party to the center. But should democrats play it safe and be the center party, but not be clear ehat they stand for? Or should they go further left and risk alienating voters?
See there's the assumption, that it's the left wing ideas of liberals that will alienate voters which to me, again as a foreigner seem counter intuitive. When your middle class is shrinking the worry is that attempted efforts to cancel student debt or relieve health care costs are what will repel your voting base as opposed to the fact that, while your Democrat's aren't Republican, they aren't actually helping the Democrat base much more than the GOP. The best that can be said currently is that they aren't actively trying to hurt it.

At least the GOP favors federal assistance to American farmers, they aren't afraid to spend money to help their electorate. It's just spending money on minorities, academics and city dwellers that they oppose.

Offline dpareja

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Re: What does the democratic party stand for?
« Reply #4 on: August 07, 2018, 08:55:41 pm »
They're only spending money on farmers because they previously hurt farmers by engaging in needless trade wars, and the countries against whom they levied tariffs retaliated with tariffs targeting GOP voting blocs.
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Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: What does the democratic party stand for?
« Reply #5 on: August 07, 2018, 11:03:29 pm »
Fair enough, do the Democrats vote for spending
equal amounts of money on Americans in their target demographics who were hurt by the Democrats unwavering support of neoliberal economics to the same extent? What about ones imprisoned under laws brought in by Bill Clinton to crack down on "superpredators?"

Offline Askold

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Re: What does the democratic party stand for?
« Reply #6 on: August 07, 2018, 11:58:54 pm »
I'm just going to point out that the GOP hardly lost any voters as they went from "further in the right than the other party" to "racists, religious fanatics, pedophiles, Libertarians and agents of foreign power." It's only recently that they began to shed voters.

There's really no chance for the Democrats to take those voters by going right AND avoid angering the rest of their voting base.

The Two-party system caused by the FPTP voting really fucking sucks but it's not like changing the system would get support from either party since they are the ones who benefit from it.
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Offline Skybison

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Re: What does the democratic party stand for?
« Reply #7 on: August 08, 2018, 12:04:10 am »
One thing I've read is that the reason it's harder to pin down what democrats stand for and why they tend to be centrists is the fundamental difference between who they are aimed at.

Republicans aim themselves at two main demographics: 1) Rich people who don't want to share their money with the poor and 2) uneducated rural white men who want to maintain the social/cultural dominance of Christian White Men.  Their are some smaller groups like Mormons and some subdivisions (ie fundies vs more secular anti-PC types) but that's mostly it.  So all a republican needs to do is say he'll cut taxes, ban abortions and hurt the immigrants and he's golden.  To advance himself what he must do is declare he'll cut taxes even more then the other repubs, ban abortions even faster and hurt immigrants even worse.

Democrats meanwhile represent everyone else:  Every non-white ethnic group, every non-christian religious group (except Mormons), Gays and Trans folk, educated whites in the cities etc.  And these groups have very different priorities and beliefs.  So a democrat needs to be able to appeal to a much more diverse audience.  So he or she advances himself or herself by being someone who can find common ground and be acceptable to everyone, even if not what any one group would want most.

Also no offense Tol, but can you define what Neoliberalism is?  It's just I kind of think the word is in the same category as fascist, Communist, Neoconservative etc of labels few people put on themselves but are frequently thrown around at anyone the thrower doesn't like.

Offline Id82

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Re: What does the democratic party stand for?
« Reply #8 on: August 08, 2018, 03:24:40 am »
Neoliberalism has been around a long time. It usually stands for being economically liberal, but more socially conservative.
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Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: What does the democratic party stand for?
« Reply #9 on: August 08, 2018, 03:25:53 am »
Laissez faire economic liberalism, attendant policies including shrinking the welfare state, privatising public assets and promoting policies which aid the concentration as opposed to the redistribution of wealth. Also dissuading regulation of private enterprise in favor of self regulation.

It's also no secret that the American version of this outlook is more extreme than our antipodean version. We still have socialized medicine which has broad bipartisan support despite conservatives privately not liking it very much. Same could be said of the UK.