September 5, 2009
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The Difference between Republicans and Democrats
These are some interesting thoughts too. Not sure if it’s true or not but makes some sense. Read more similar stuff here.
“What we learned in August is something we’ve long known but keep forgetting: The most important difference between America’s Democratic left and Republican right is that the left has ideas and the right has discipline. Obama and progressive supporters of health care were outmaneuvered in August — not because the right had any better idea for solving the health care mess but because the rights’ attack on the Democrats’ idea was far more disciplined than was the Democrats’ ability to sell it.I say the Democrats’ “idea” but in fact there was no single idea. Obama never sent any detailed plan to Congress. Meanwhile, congressional Dems were so creative and undisciplined before the August recess they came up with a kaleidoscope of health-care plans. The resulting incoherence served as an open invitation to the Republican right to focus with great precision on convincing the public of their own demonic version of what the Democrats were up to — that it would take away their Medicare, require “death panels,” raise their taxes, and lead to a government takeover of medicine, and so on. The Obama White House — a veritable idea factory brimming with ingenuity — thereafter proved unable to come up with a single, convincing narrative to counteract this right-wing hokum. Whatever discipline Obama had mustered during the campaign somehow disappeared.
[....]
You want to know why the left has ideas and the right has discipline? Because people who like ideas and dislike authority tend to identify with the Democratic left, while people who feel threatened by new ideas and more comfortable in a disciplined and ordered world tend to identify with the Republican right. Democrats and progressives let a thousand flowers bloom. Republicans and the right issue directives. This has been the yin and yang of American politics and culture. But it means that the Democratic left’s new ideas often fall victim to its own notorious lack of organization and to the right’s highly-organized fear mongering.”
- Robert Reich
Comments (27)
That’s very interesting.
I am not sure that is the case. I would imagine a bigger factor right now is the Democrats are in power and the Republicans can sit back and oppose everything. I hate to stay on message but you do remember the 8 years of the Bush administration? This is politics. It was designed to slow decisions down so that we could take a look at what is passing and decide if we want it.
I totally agree. This lays out a much more coherent reason for the way things are turning out than what pundits have offered.
In a similar vein, a recent study showed that, when shown ambiguous pictures, the amount of fear responses recorded through skin conductants accurately predicted whether you were a democrat or republican. For example, they showed a picture of a smiling man with a gaint spider crawling across his face. When I saw it, it seemed obvious to me that he was not in harms way or he would have looked upset (he was lookign right at it), but I guess that’s why I’m a democrat lol
why cant there be a party with both… bright ideas and the discipline to work with each other…
Uh… I see you and Dan have opposing viewpoints here, so I’ll abstain from leaving a real comment and instead link to a captioned lolphoto of Vladimir Putin. Everyone can agree on making fun of Vladimir Putin.
//Because people who like ideas and dislike authority tend to identify
with the Democratic left, while people who feel threatened by new ideas
and more comfortable in a disciplined and ordered world tend to
identify with the Republican right.//
That’s slightly off, in my opinion. Generally, the GOP favors a smaller government and by extension dislikes authority, even moreso now that Obama is in control of a Democratic Congressional majority. However, the other stuff about the ideas is all opinion and little fact, since the GOP wants to fix the healthcare system as bad as the Dems do (after all, it’s not like they’re big fans of the way SS is going atm…)
@jenessa1889 - Do you have the link to that study? That sounds interesting.
More leftist bullshit. You all just keep drinking the kool aid. That’s why you’re brain-dead.
I don’t think it’s about discipline as much as it is about it being far easier to make shit up to scare people than to explain complex problems.
Same thing with the evolution vs creationism debate, while a science nerd is spending 45 minutes explaining the basics of the geological column, genetics, heredity, the fossil record and the morphological similarities between different forms of life, some wahoo asshole is holding up a photoshopped picture of a half-crocodile half-duck and telling people “this is what evolution means” and convincing a hundred morons that facts even christian scientists have agreed with for a century is some craazy secular religion.
As mark twain put it, a good lie can get halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on it’s shoes.
@TheTheologiansCafe - So remind me, when in bush’s first six months was he called a terrorist commie who wants to destroy america, who is raising his own private army and trying to liquidate the elderly?
Don’t pretend bush had to put up with half the shit obama has to deal with from the thugs on the right.
There’s partisan bullshit on both sides, but this is a bit more extreme.
People are showing up at obama rallies with loaded automatic weapons and signs openly advocating political assassination and the right is encouraging and defending it.
@QuantumStorm - The republicans want to fix healthcare as bad as the dems? Could have fooled me.
And republicans in congress don’t care about making government smaller any more than they do about gay marriage or abortion, they just use those to get elected and then do nothing even when they have unprecedented political power.
@agnophilo - //The republicans want to fix healthcare as bad as the dems? Could have fooled me.//
It’s easier to make money covering tea parties and townhall shoutouts than it is to cover GOP’s and fiscal conservatives talking about how to fix healthcare.
//And republicans in congress don’t care about
making government smaller any more than they do about gay marriage or
abortion, they just use those to get elected and then do nothing even
when they have unprecedented political power.//
Republicans in Congress? Sounds like you just described EVERYONE in Congress (and I’m glad you qualified by saying Republicans IN CONGRESS, since not all members of the GOP are total nutjobs).
@agnophilo - You’ll see the same with leftist morons in PETA… I think it’s obvious that in our society, sensationalism and instant gratification trump diligence and factual accuracy, which is rather unfortunate.
@QuantumStorm -
“It’s
easier to make money covering tea parties and townhall shoutouts than
it is to cover GOP’s and fiscal conservatives talking about how to fix
healthcare.”
Some republicans, sure. But they’re a minority within their own party, which is now also a minority. I know there are good republicans, but more of them these days are independents, libertarians etc. Republican has become sort of a dirty word.
“Republicans
in Congress? Sounds like you just described EVERYONE in Congress”
Yes. Though democrats don’t make a pretense of wanting smaller government. I personally don’t care how big the government is in terms of spending, I just care how powerful it is and whether it is wise to do something with taxes or on a state or federal level. I am not frightened by the prospect of public health insurance or medicare/medicaid. I think that to be afraid that it’s making the government “bigger” is asinine and beside the point.
“(and
I’m glad you qualified by saying Republicans IN CONGRESS, since not all
members of the GOP are total nutjobs).”
I don’t think all republicans are total nutjobs, but the ones in congress and on tv sure make the rest look like it.
I don’t think all republicans are stupid or racist, but I think damn near all stupid or racist people are republican. And that should bother republicans even more than it does me.
@agnophilo - The vocal minority ends up ruining the GOP for others, and their failure to adhere to the original party platform is part of the reason why I’m a libertarian myself.
//I don’t think all republicans are stupid or
racist, but I think damn near all stupid or racist people are
republican. And that should bother republicans even more than it does
me.//
You’ll find morons everywhere – I doubt that the majority of racists are Republicans, especially considering the old-fashioned southern Democrats… but yeah, what bothers me is that it doesn’t bother the GOP more that they are being hijacked by fear-mongers and idiots.
@QuantumStorm - I’m not a big fan of peta either. But I don’t think I’ve seen anything that compares to the crazy I’ve seen in the last year or so from the GOP.
@agnophilo - That’s because PETA wasn’t in control of Congress from 2000 to 2008 (remember “Holocaust on a Plate”? That was some fucked up shit).
@QuantumStorm - I think it doesn’t bother them because a) many of them now are fear-mongers and idiots and bigots and religious nuts themselves (when you promote these as ideals to get elected, after awhile these are the people that get elected), and b) they tend to only care about getting elected. I honestly don’t think they care if the country burns down so long as they get to rule over the ashes.
@QuantumStorm - The GOP was in control of all three branches of the federal government actually, representing a massive failure of our political system.
I don’t remember the holocaust on a plate thing. But it sounds stupid.
@agnophilo - I don’t think it represented a massive failure, especially given that it was by popular vote. I can see how it’s important to have the pluralism of ideas, but it’s not as if the Democrats were completely non-existent in Congress either.
The Holocaust on a Plate was an ad campaign that tried to compare the WWII Holocaust to BBQ chicken, ribs, beef, etc. Anti-defamation leagues were pretty pissed.
@QuantumStorm - The democrats were not non-existent but they were completely shut out. Republicans are trying to do the same even in the minority.
But yeah, it was a massive failure, the separation of powers ceased to exist for a decade and look what happened?
Our system is supposed to be comprised of many politicians that are in office for relatively short amounts of times in many parties that are in the majority for relatively short amounts of time. Not politicians who are almost impossible to get our of office in 1 of 2 political parties.
The republican party desperately needs to split off into two factions and the republicans do to, then we’ll be on our way to a workable system that favors the constituents, not the politicians.
But they won’t let go of their power structure and are trying to make politics as polarized as possible.
@agnophilo - //The democrats were not non-existent but they
were completely shut out. Republicans are trying to do the same even
in the minority.//
The GOP is just as shut out as the Dems were when the GOP was in power – they’re just more vocal about it, that’s all.
//
The republican party desperately
needs to split off into two factions and the republicans do to, then
we’ll be on our way to a workable system that favors the constituents,
not the politicians.//
Why the bias against GOP? I’d like to see an end to the two-party system, and that means I’d like to see the same with the Dems. Like the GOP, they’ve grown into festering tumors that seek to preserve and propagate themselves, and not what the people want.
//But they won’t let go of their power structure and are trying to make politics as polarized as possible.//
Precisely. The GOP is polarizing by resorting to ad hominem, and the Democrats are polarizing by steamrolling. In the end, the constituents lose and the GOP and Dems go home with a paycheck.
@QuantumStorm -
“The GOP is just as shut out as the Dems were when the GOP was in power – they’re just more vocal about it, that’s all.”
No, the GOP isn’t. They’re getting there though, because they’re not doing anything in good faith and are just trying to sabotage the dems, which have tried to reach across the aisle a number of times, from changing the stim bill to suit the republicans to giving them a say in policy decisions regarding healthcare. Every time the republicans try to stab them in the back, so what else is there to do but shut them out?
I don’t think that is anything like what happened in the bush years where the general attitude was and still is that republicans were the only “real” americans. Bush won by an extremely narrow margin and considered it a “mandate from the american people” because he was running to be president of the republican party, so he saw that as unanimous support. That’s the mentality on the right.
They got voted out of office and they act like it’s a personal injustice.
“Why
the bias against GOP? I’d like to see an end to the two-party system,
and that means I’d like to see the same with the Dems. Like the GOP,
they’ve grown into festering tumors that seek to preserve and propagate
themselves, and not what the people want.”
I’m sorry I got kind of side-tracked, I meant to say and the dems need to as well, but that neither will because both are trying to hold onto their power structure and no one will put down their gun first. I just bumbled it, sorry. When I said “they” after the bit you quoted I meant republicans and democrats.
“Precisely.
The GOP is polarizing by resorting to ad hominem, and the Democrats are
polarizing by steamrolling. In the end, the constituents lose and the
GOP and Dems go home with a paycheck.”
I agree. I’m glad that in a few decades they’ll all be dead. Time heals all wounds, ya know? I just hope the country hasn’t been reposessed by china or taken over by the “birther” party by then.
@agnophilo - You make a good point regarding the Bush years… I think though that if the GOP stops with the backlash and the Dems stop with the steamrolling, it’ll work. The problem is as you said – who will put down their gun first? If the GOP stops, they’ll be seen as spineless corporate-types in bed with CEO’s, and if the Dems start to take the backlash seriously, they’ll be seen as being overly worried about partisan bickering.
//I agree. I’m glad that in a few
decades they’ll all be dead. Time heals all wounds, ya know? I just
hope the country hasn’t been reposessed by china or taken over by the
“birther” party by then.//
Well if this healthcare reform passes, they may still be around longer
@QuantumStorm - ”Well if this healthcare reform passes, they may still be around longer”
No, unlike the average american they already have excellent health insurance.
@agnophilo - Touche lol.
@QuantumStorm - Unfortunately it’s true.