Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General What's the Democratic Party doing?

Okay, it's personal. I can respect that. You think she's uppity.

I never got that impression about her, but then I'm not particularly tuned into that kinda stuff. I'm all about policy. And I want that policy to advance the rights of working class citizens.

Soldiers, sailors, and marines are working class citizens. overworked, underpaid, and not appreciated. Conscripted proles for the most part.

Tools of the bourgeoisie, with a directive from the aristocracy.

It's not a bad career, pay's not great but the work is steady.

Like every other job, that one should start at $15 an hour.

Now we are getting somewhere! It was personal animosity. Some people can overcome that, and vote for the good of the country. Not respecting the military, versus pussygrabbing child-rapist who's best buddy is Putin.

Okay. Not a decision I would make, but each person gets to decide what's important to them.

One of the major sins of a political party is when they stop talking to anybody that is a member of that party to the exclusion to all else. Right now that's the way both parties are acting. I don't think that anybody can actually say the members of the current Republican party give a damn about somebody who is not a Trumpist/Republican. I fear that the Democrats also seem to listen to each other rather than outsiders.

This is unfortunate and another indication of the "Not Give an Inch" and "My Way or the Highway" politics of each side. If the Dems do win, however, they are going to be, I think, deluged by many not exactly on the Dem radar right now. My fond hope is that this will break it all up and get us back to two sides talking it over.

We will, of course, in the fullness of time............

I get the impression Biden doesn't wish all Republicans dead in the way Trump wishes all Democrats dead. He's old school, from back when Democrats and Republicans in Congress actually struck up friendships and socialized.

I think Biden's history of trying to work across the aisle, at least as a senator and brokering the deal to end the government shutdown as VP with McConnell is one of the main reasons I'm backing him. I'm also so sick and tired of this modern era of politics of polarization and ultra high partisanship.

I think what you say is why a majority of Americans have an unfavorable view of both major parties, Democratic Party 56% unfavorable, Republican Party 61% unfavorable. This is why I think both parties are shrinking and independents are rising, from 30% in 2006 to 40% today of the electorate. Neither party represents them anymore.

The numbers, from 2006 the democratic party has dropped from 37% of the electorate down to 31%. The GOP from 31% down to 25%.

This was the time when both parties went to their very partisan leaders who replaced leaders who respected each other and for the most part were willing to work with each other. In the Senate, Lott and Daschle gave way to Reid, McConnell and now Schumer. Which gave us the nuclear option, my way or the highway. I could never envision Lott and Daschle, Mitchell and Dole, even Baker and Robert Byrd even thinking of it.

I'm probably living in the past, cooperation and respect between major parties probably will never return to what it once was. If you go back through history, you'll find there were very few party line votes pre-2006. If there were, they were a rarity. Now it's the norm.

Why on Earth would you talk to republicans after the last several years?

Hmm, I think this polarization and ultra high partisanship has gone to the heads of both major parties. Being a numbers guy, I thought to look at the average approval given to each president by the opposing party.

Trump 8% by Democrats so far.
Obama 15% by Republicans for his two terms/
G.W. Bush Second term approval by Democrats 11%. With 9-11 happening Bush's first term approval was 40% by Democrats. Prior to 9-11 Bush's approval by Democrats was 26%.
Bill Clinton averaged 33% approval by Republicans
G.H.W. Bush averaged 35% approval by Democrats for his 4 years.
Reagan 34% for both terms by Democrats.
Carter 32% by Republicans for his single term.
Ford 35% by Democrats for his little more than a year in office.
Nixon 42% for his first term by Democrats, 15% for his Watergate shorten 2nd term.
LBJ 44% by Republicans
JFK 48% by Republicans
Eisenhower 52% by Democrats

So prior to G.W. Bush all previous president had an opposing party approval of at least in the 30's with IKE, JFK, LBJ and Nixon's first term, above 40%. It seems to me, numbers wise the polarization and ultra high partisanship we have existing today between the two major parties began with and during G.W. Bush' presidency.

I think that during IKE's, JFK's, LBJ's and Nixon's first term, their high opposing party's approval rating can probably be traced to an era when both major parties had their conservative and liberal wings. Prior to the shedding of their unwanted wings. Then for the president's in the 30's, each party still had a large share of moderates which each party began getting rid of in the early 2000's. This coincides with party affiliation and the rise of independents which the more moderate factions have become.

From IKE through Nixon's first term, the two major parties share of the electorate ranged from 75-80% with independents making up between 20-25%/ Beginning with Nixon's second term until G.W. Bush the two major parties averaged between 65-70%. Beginning in 2005 the share of the electorate between the two major parties has dropped to between 55-60% with independents climbing to a high of 40% today. This coincides with the Republicans moving to the right and the Democrats to the left of the political spectrum.

Which brings me to an old saying during Eisenhower era. Who exactly said it, I don't know, but it stuck in my mine. When the question was asked what the Republican Party believed in as to the GOP being known as the conservative party even back then. The answer was, the same as the democratic party, only a little bit less. Perhaps back then there really wasn't that much difference between parties, ideological wise that is. There probably was much more differences in the Democratic party with their southern conservatives and northern liberals than between the Democratic party and the Republican party as a whole.

Something to think about.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that the impeachment of president Clinton and the suspicious nature of Bush's appointment to the presidency drove a wedge between the two parties.

Donald Trump has now driven them so far apart that you can forget about anything happening across the aisle for a generation to come.

Even a medical emergency becomes a political pissing contest.

Call me a partisan if you will, but as far as I'm concerned it has been the Republican party which has instigated the whole mess. Sticking its hands into every gaping wound and pulling it open further.

Owning the libs has become the only goal. The only good democrat is a dead democrat. McConnel has already announced that he will stop anything and everything Biden attempts to pass.

Armed Republican militiamen stormed the Democratic held Michigan statehouse with impunity, yet a black child is shot for playing with a toy gun.

Reach across the aisle you say? It is dirty over there, it doesn't wash its hands or wear a face mask. It puts children in cages. It shoots black teenagers in the back. It doesn't care about the environment or whether children get fed. I'm not sticking my hand into that mess and no other Democrat will either.

If they reach across and ask to be pulled from the mire I might give them a hand though.

It really started with newt gingrich. If you google him you will get a lot of stuff like:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/

Virtually everybody pretty much agrees he is the beginning of the real poison that now grips all of congress.

The impeachment of Bill Clinton, certainly. Perhaps it was the Hastert rule, post Gingrich because the Republicans in the house thought Newt was too soft on Bill Clinton and the Democrats. They fired him.