The old saw is that Democrats and Republicans are just different sides of the same coin. The last time I heard it, and probably the last time most of us heard it, was when a Republican was attempting to defend some atrocious thing done by another Republican: having failed to adequately defend the merits of the event or statement, resorting to the solid defense of “So are you.”
“There was no meddling in the election.”
“Ok, sure, there was meddling, but no one knows who it was who did it. Maybe it was someone weighing 400 pounds sitting in his basement.”
“Yes, there was meddling, but it had no effect on the election.”
“No? Well, Obama knew about it and did nothing.”
Yes, all these statements are lies. But the last—that Obama knew and did nothing—is perhaps the most pernicious. He did know, and he met with ranking politicians from both parties and was met with, unremarkably, a strong push-back from the Republicans, who threatened to accuse Obama of trying to tip the election in favor of Clinton.
(Hillary lost for a plethora of reasons, including 1) the boneheaded refusal to vote by Sanders supporters, 2) Ms. Clinton’s baffling campaign trail, which avoided the blue-wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, 3) ignoring the white working class—which the Democrats have done for too many years—while Trump sang love songs to them, 4) Comey’s statement less than a week before the election that there were more Clinton-related emails that needed to be reviewed, and 5) Russian tinkering with social media in an effort to make Clinton look bad, which, given she is probably the most hated person in the world by many Republicans and has been the subject of their attacks for 30 years, really was not that hard.)
In any event, Obama backed off, which, over the last several decades, is perhaps the most inane tactic—if one can call it that— Democrats have employed. They back down from fights with Republicans, giving up the fight without really engaging.
Democrats are the race-baiting party, the one that pits races against each other for their political gain.
Republicans love to point out that the Republican Party was formed in the 1850s for the purpose of freeing the slaves, as seen from this statement in the Richland County Observer (Richland Center, Wisconsin) Nov 24, 1857:
“We intend the Constitution to be THE GREAT CHARACTER OF HUMAN LIBERTY to the unborn millions who shall enjoy its protection; and who should never see that such an institution as slavery was ever known in our midst.” — James Madison.
“Slavery exists in Kansas under the Constitution.” — James Buchanan.
The former expresses the view of the Republican party; the latter the views of the so called Democratic party.
Republicans promote the following image of what has been called the “Klanbake,” making a slippery reference to the 1924 Democratic National Convention held at Madison Square Garden.
The image, showing hooded Klansmen marching in a parade, dates from December 1924 (five months after the convention) and documents a rally held in Madison, Wisconsin. The nighttime photo of KKK members posing en masse in front of a burning cross was taken in 1921. According to the Chicago Tribune, it documents an initiation ceremony held in August of that year outside Chicago.
It wasn’t that the Klan did not have a presence in the Democratic Party; it did, and it was successful in voting down a denouncement of the Klan at the 1924 Democratic Convention (the longest convention ever).
Further, Snopes says this: There is no reason to suppose, in fact, that the overlapping timings of the Klan gathering and the Democratic National Convention were anything other than coincidental. The convention got underway, as scheduled, on June 24. Had it lasted four days (which was, and still is, the average length of presidential nominating conventions), it would have been over by June 28th [the date of the Klan event]. No one, least of all the planners of the so-called Independence Day “Klorero,” could have predicted that the convention would continue through the Fourth of July and beyond. The events were unrelated.
And finally: Despite the fact that the Klan had sunk its tendrils just as deeply into Republican Party politics (an anti-KKK platform plank similar to the one rejected by Democrats met the same fate at that year’s Republican convention), the extent of the group’s supposed control over the 1924 Democratic convention has come to be exaggerated to legendary proportions. That is in large part thanks to the efforts of social media propagandists bent on tarring Democrats in particular with the legacy of the Klan’s religious bigotry, xenophobia, and racism. (Snopes article.)
Yes, both parties used to mirror the country and were mostly different sides of the same coin. But things changed, and party that had dominance over the old Civil-War South and accommodated the racists therein changed. So did the Republicans, but one moved towards the light while the other embraced the dark side.
Johnson knowingly threw away the South for Democrats by forcing the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Republicans are fond of saying that it was only with Republican votes that this passed, that the Democrats were against it. Again, not true. There are many ways of looking at this vote, but the most interesting is by region, as follows:
The original House version:
- Southern Democrats: 7–87 (7–93%)
- Southern Republicans: 0–10 (0–100%)
- Northern Democrats: 145–9 (94–6%)
- Northern Republicans: 138–24 (85–15%)
The Senate version:
- Southern Democrats: 1–20 (5–95%) (only Ralph Yarborough of Texas voted in favor)
- Southern Republicans: 0–1 (0–100%) (John Tower of Texas)
- Northern Democrats: 45–1 (98–2%) (only Robert Byrd of West Virginia voted against)
- Northern Republicans: 27–5 (84–16%)
“Southern”, as used in this section, refers to members of Congress from the eleven states that made up the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. “Northern” refers to members from the other 39 states, regardless of the geographic location of those states. (Wikipedia.)
The pièce de résistance is then thrown on that table: Johnson was a racist. And racist he may have been, but if so, his signature piece of legislation is an example of his putting the rights of people above his beliefs, something which we could use a lot more of these days.
“I left the Democratic Party because I could never forgive their embrace of George Wallace.” Yeah, I get it. I suppose one could date their hatred of the party from Tammany Hall, but that would take some knowledge of history. Of course, it was Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”—still effectively used by Republicans—which divided the electorate by race and used race to secure the Southern white vote that won him the White House.
The problem with all this is it is just too hard to unpack the lies and half-truths said about Democrats and Liberals. The accusation, the slur, comes in a two-second sound bite, or as depicted above, an internet meme with a picture and 24 words—all designed to make a significant impression in a simple way. These are done with full knowledge that the refutation and proof of the lie will be much longer and probably include things like real facts and dates and names—and just bore the ever-loving hell out of most Americans these days. Most will not go past the first page of results from an internet search, and the go-to, be all of all knowledge is Wikipedia (which does have its place. I will use it, but not as a root source.)
(Part of the problem is how history is taught to most of us, which only requires memorization of dates, events and names which, after the test, slip out of our minds. “What started WWI?”, the test asks. And we regurgitate the correct memorized answer, “the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Archduke of Austria-Hungary on June 28, 1914,” With enough of this, we pass the class, never understanding—or even caring to understand—the deeper roots. Was it the result of a family feud? Was it that Kaiser Wilhelm had a withered arm and was trying to be the “Big Man in Europe?” The textbook answer is not wrong, but it is like saying that cannon fire on Fort Sumter started the American Civil War and accepting that as the final and only answer without understanding the roots from before the founding of the country and dealt with in less-than-perfect fashion—actually, avoided—in the Constitution, and so many other things societal and economic after that.”)
(Another part of the problem is that we—as a country—seem to have lost the value we used to place on knowing stuff, on education. Anyone remember being called “egghead,” or “too smart for your own good,” or “nerd, geek, dork,” and so on? I actually heard someone tell a first grader that he would have to go to school for twelve years and then would never have to learn anything again in his life.”)
The stated equivalence of both parties is not longer true, except for one thing—that they both depend on contributions from corporations, and as Mark Twain said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” This can be fixed, but it will take a lot of work. (See Wolf-Pac)
The Republican Party has been effective in getting folks to vote against their own self-interest by stoking fears:
- Christianity is under attack (How, when the clear majority of Americans are still Christian? Because it has lost its preferred seat, and is now being given the same consideration as other religions?)
- Immigrants are taking over the country. (Which led Ann Coulter to declare she is a descendant of settler, not immigrants. Huh? And yet, people find a difference when there is none. Ok, so, this is true—in a few years, whites will not be the majority, but will still have a plurality, and generally, immigrants make the country better)
- Gays—LQBTQ—are taking over. (Fat chance. This grouping is maybe in the early throes of getting some semblance of equality under the law.)
- Democrats want abortion on demand, up through the last day of the pregnancy. (Really? I have never met on who does.)
- The lying press and fake news are the enemy of the people. (A statement that would make every dictator happy and should frighten the bejeesus out of every American.)
The list is almost endless, and each of the above has corollaries and sub-plots.
What have the Republicans done to harm the very people they scare?
- Look at the tax bill from last year—cuts for corporations and wealthy, claiming growth will make up the difference, a claim they have made without any noticeable result since the 1980s.
- The stated efforts to reduce or eliminate social security, Medicare and Medicaid (which they have been trying to do since Roosevelt got Social Security enacted). Paul Ryan is an almost textbook of hypocrisy in this arena, having attended college because of Social Security, he now believes it is not a good thing.
- The withdrawal or shrinking of the social safety net in general, which is large part based on the belief that being poor is not always a choice, but staying poor is—the theory that one can, if properly motivated, pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. (One must have boots, I suppose.)
- Their inability to stand up to the National Rifle Association and enact laws supported by the clear majority of Americans putting some sanity into gun ownership in the country.
- Killing regulations over the environment on the belief that no business would do things that harm the environment because doing so would be bad for business. (I am thinking of the frog and the lizard. Also, Superfund Sites, Love Canal, the burning of the Cuyahoga River. I am involved in the Oil business and can tell you that while the efforts to operate cleanly have been effective, that eventually, oil pipelines and all well sites will leak. It’s just physics. Keeping things under control is expensive, and when money is short, prudent and good people, people who care about the environmental impact of the industry, often want to push things to next month or next year and would do so more often without the oversight by regulatory bodies.)
- Preferring guns—military spending—over butter—domestic spending—to such a degree that we spend more than the next 7 – 8 nations combined while ignoring education.
The worst, most craven, possibly evil, action is their refusal to do anything substantive regarding health care. We spend almost twice the average or other countries with nowhere near the results achieved by others. If we had the gumption to make real change, we could. Already now, the per-capita spending on health care using tax dollars, exceed the per-capita spending of any other country in total.
To put it another way—universal health care is a conservative thing. If passed, we would not need to raise taxes and could do away with all personal spending on health are. Think about this. No insurance premium, no co-pays, no cost of medicine other than what is currently paid for with taxes.
Obama care is often cited by Republicans as the worst thing the Democrats have done. Sure and well, it was an attempt to start making things affordable for poor and middle class, an attempt to slow down the embarrassing level of medical cost bankruptcies. And their complaints:
- The deductibles are too high, no one can afford them. Never mind, that without insurance, the deductible was unlimited. (See comment regarding bankruptcy).
- It takes away your choice of doctors. (No, that is the insurance company.)
- It rations medical care. (Again, see insurance company.)
- If everyone has insurance, then you might have to wait a little longer to get that operation. (Outside of the selfishness of this, it has not proven to be true generally in any country. Yeah and sure, there are anecdotal examples from the UK, but it does happen here too—insurance companies make more money by deferring or denying claims.)
- I don’t want a bureaucrat between me and my doctor. (Neither do I, but insurance companies are full of them. The difference being that insurance company employees have a profit motive, governmental employees do not.)
- The government can do nothing right. “Keep your government hands off my Medicare.” Except for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Military, I suppose they are right.
The primary evils of the Democrats have been given to the moochers: propping up people when they need it, caring for them when they are sick, perhaps levelling the playing field for people of color and LGBT and the poor and sick, working towards eliminating some of the unfairness created when the system is allowed to work on its own, based on the rule that he with the most gold rules.
It is said that if one is not a Democrat when one is young, they lack a heart, but if they are not a Republican when they are older, they lack a brain. When I was young, I was a Republican. As I got older, had kids, and grew to know more about the world, I had to yield to my heart and switch parties.
This is not to say I am in lockstep, because there are things I wish they would do differently, but the Republican mantra that Liberals get their marching orders from Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton or George Soros or Saul Alinski’s writing—their current personifications of Satan—would be laughable if so many Conservatives did not believe it. Ask 10 Liberals their opinion on almost anything and the result is likely more than 20 answers.
A-hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Howl at the Moon 
Reblogged this on petriesan.
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