We Americans must accept that we have political parties and that we should find our party based upon our ideals and stick with it for awhile. Since early in our nation’s political history, partisanship has been here to stay. We must learn to grow with it, changing it from within, and enjoying its victories, and learning from its losses.
In the beginning we were not supposed to have political parties. In fact the framers spoke of the demerits of party politics in the few years before drafting a constitution. But within fifteen years of adopting our Constitution, the congress broke-off into two camps, or “parties,” and the presidential and gubernatorial candidates followed behind. Former loyalists (to the King) became the Whigs, and revolutionaries became the Federalists. The Whigs favored a strictly republic form of government with little to no citizenship representation or decision making. The Federalists favored a republic but wanted representative democracy. Thus formed the popular terms and then form parties: the Republican and the Democratic parties. Today the party conventions, primary elections, party officers both local and national, are all inventions which are not mandated in the Articles of Confederation which lay-out the architecture of our government.
We have all heard it or even said it before; “there’s no difference between the parties, they’re both a bunch of corrupt crooks and money hungry (etc..).” The statement reflects an ignorance of what is really going on. Those parties and those representatives within are no more corrupt, no more crooks, than the members of your own family, or if not, the family next door to you. Sometimes they can’t balance their check book. Sometimes the infighting is so bad, the car has to pull over off the road for the ruckus to settle. Sometimes they grow so fat and lethargic and glutinous that it becomes obvious and members must be expelled. The founders were right about the congress, its alive, its reflective of our citizenship and its no better or worse than you or I.
The parties also, each have a philosophy to be followed. Sometimes the philosophy is not written but can be examined and defined from a distance. The best way to determine a political party’s philosophy is to study their actions – as is the case with all of us, i.e. “we are what we have done.”
It is understood that there will always be two parties of merit able strength in American politics. In actuality, in most politics around the world, especially where some form of democracy is in place, a single body comprised of individual entities will form-up into legions that have coalesced into two formations.
In nature; bi symmetry is found in almost all life forms. There are not life forms where, for instance, the Democratic Party female, mates with a Republican Party male, and then an Independent and a Green Party Senator must join in to complete the process. In all warm blooded reproduction on Earth there are two phases to fertilization, the forming process (the body politic comes together), and the addition from outside of a fertilization body into the formation (a legislative act, a bill, a need, a demand).
Accept there should be two. Know that two camps of everything is natural. For example; vote for your Green Party candidates with devotion, disregarding what ever is happening in the major parties, and you really do throw away your vote. But, you also reverse the progress of a natural process that has evolved over the years. In the future, one party, or three, or four parties, will eventually be two again. Don’t put American citizens through the growing process of failed representation, all over again.
Currently in divided American party politics, one party is filled with followers who require leadership to follow, to hear its party dogma from, and to absorb that dogma into their psyche. This is one of many generalizations of the Republican Party.
The constituents who support this party are hard working, blue collar and white collar middle to lower class peoples. They are more likely to occupy the land area away from the major cities (where people live densely together they vote Democratic). They are less likely to have the time to spend investigating media reports of what politicians are doing, or which ones are responsible for what actions. They do have the time to listen to am radio in their vehicles, either at work, or driving to or from work. Since 1987 when the Ronald Reagan administration released all broadcast radio and television stations and owners from responsibility to follow an 70 years old law requiring all political opinion or campaigning be balanced with opposition, the Fairness in Broadcasting Act, religions and conservative ownership immediately moved into those markets and suddenly politically Conservative and Christian right-wing fundamentalists began owning large chunks of middle American market. The blue and white collar middle and lower working classes who really only had time to get their media from the radio in the care, could now hear Rush Limbaugh all over the country, without hearing an opposition viewpoint.
The other party proceeds slower but with more detail, more complexity, seeing and preparing for more contingencies. The members of this party base their judgments on what they have seen, or what they have read from those who make it their life’s career to know the related subjects. This is the Democratic Party and they are sort of a free pastoral range herd of independent and critical thinkers. A herd that refuses to follow a leader in any procession towards any matter they themselves have not investigated to full understanding. As disorganized as this may seem, their goals are more closely related than is first perceived. Each of them is facing toward their goal together and it’s a long term goal, with big solutions, permanent fixes to age old problems. Their goals have something else in common; for any numerous reasons, over the many years and decades, the people have not be able to reach these numerous goals themselves.
I challenge anyone reading this opinion article to disprove the following generalization which I feel accurately describes the difference between the Democratic and Republican parties:
Under Republicans
Man Exploits Man.
Under Democrats
It’s the Opposite.
This statement could be disproved by searching for legislation advocated for almost exclusively by the modern Republican party (post Civil Rights Act 1968) which does not contain provisions allowing the further, or easier, or newly created exploitation of workers, of consumers, or of immigrants, or of public servants. Go ahead look it up. The Republican party of today throws in something for the big corporations to exploit, in almost all legislation. They fight Democratic party legislation that seeks to aid and assist workers and consumers, to live better and to have equal opportunity. So, Democratic Party members and supporters seek to reverse exploitation, and Republican Party members seek to allow the exploitation of men by other men.
