Is the Republican Party America's natural governing party?
POSTED BY: Skywalken
UPDATED: Friday, April 7, 2006 04:56
VIEWED: 6016
PAGE 3 of 3
Oh, if only it was possible. The country seems more divided than I can remember these days. The talking heads create significant issues in unifing the country in both spirit and ideology. Unfortunatly, the only thing that ever seems to unite, even if momentarily, is great tragedy.
Kuang Zhe De 
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Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:
I don't think America has a natural governing party. The whole concept smacks of entitlement and I think thats the quickest way to lose elections, heck thats half the Democrats problem in recent years, particularly with the African-American community.
Democrats need to get off their buts and start offering solutions instead of expecting support on principal. "Vote for us because we're Democrats" isn't an effective long term strategy for governing.
Historically, the African-American community voted Republican for about 80 years (until FDR -- when the Republicans started ignoring them, and the Democrats began reaching out to them). Since that time, they have tended to support the Democrats more often than not.
What irritates me is the way a lot of the leaders of African American groups attack other African Americans who (liberal forbid) are actually conservative (like Clarence Thomas, Condie Rice, Michael Steele, etc.).
Anyhow, as a Republican, I'm sort of hoping most African Americans will turn back to the party of Lincoln.
BTW, Rue, looking at your figures, it eventually dawned at me that you just mixed up the "Republican" and "Democrat" labels -- where, otherwise, your figures were very close.
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Quote:Yeah. Where's the hate?
Originally posted by Zanary:
This has stayed more civil than any political debate I've seen in years....
Just a joke, don't wanna see it Chrisisall
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Party of Lincoln??? It's sad when you have to go back a hundred and forty years for a good example. Lincoln would not recognize his 'party' today. Until 1964 the entire south voted Democrat- 'solid South' they called it. Then LBJ passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964. All those rednecks were furious, and became instant Repugs (sehgregay-shun forevah!), and the south has been red ever since. THAT'S why blacks vote Democrat.
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So many things to say...
Zanary, what are news pundits but celebrities? What honestly qualifies folks like Limbaugh, Hannity and O'reilley over any other person who happens to find a mouthpiece to speak through. A degree? They don't have jobs because they really know their shit. They have jobs because they are entertainers. How ironic that they would be the ones shouting the loudest about celebrities and politics.
And that statement about wartime presidents is wholly inaccurate. Roosevelt was a Democrat. Lincoln was a liberal of his time, and so was the Republican party. Eventually that party became the status quo and there was a flip...the democratic party became the party for civil rights and progressive thinking. The party name at the time is irrelevent. The actions of Lincoln as our President undercut any Republican claims to him as one of theirs.
George Washington, while not affiliated with a party as far as I know was a liberal of his time. Not so progressive as Jefferson but not so Elitist as Hamilton...all of the founding fathers being renegades.
Madison was the President during the war of 1812, Jefferson's partner in undermining the Sedition Act of Adams...yada yada yada...
A better idea would be for you to tell me who the great conservative Wartime Presidents have been...
To Dreamtrove... if the Republican party is more closely tied to the founding father's then can you explain It's utter contempt for the Bill of Rights?
Can you explain statements from Justice Scalia, that suggests the founding fathers didn't want sepparation of church and state, when the words of Franklin, Paine, Jefferson, Adams, etc. are very condemning of such a merger?
Can you explain Senator Cornyn's remarks that liberty isn't much use to you when your dead in the context of Thomas Paine's "give me liberty or give me death" or Franklin's admonition that those who trade safety for liberty deserve neither? Cornyn was referring to the wiretaps, by the way.
Can you justify the Republican threats against the justicial system in our country?
Is all this what our founding fathers wanted?
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IMHO, the US has no natural governing party. Rather, it has a natural TWO-party system. What these two parties are called, and what they actually profess to stand for, changes every few years. Lincoln's Republican party replaced the Whig party which had morphed out of the Federalists. Fightin' Bob LaFollette, possibly the closest thing the US has ever had to an influential Socialist senator, was a Progressive REPUBLICAN. It was the Republican moralizers who brought us Prohibition. FDR was the "wet" candidate. Redbaitin' Joe McCarthy ostensibly belonged to the same party, and held the same Senate seat, once occupied by LaFollette.
This country has never been able to sustain more than two viable national parties for any reasonable length of time. There is no logic or historical consistency to the two party's stances, because the two-party system is an accident, an unintended side effect of an eighteenth century stopgap solution. Most of the Founders thought there would be dozens of political parties under their system, like in parlimentary democracies, and were shocked/dismayed/dumbfounded when their brand-new baby nation immediately polarized into the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans in the run-up to the first seriously contested Presidential election.
The Electoral College system is to blame for two-party dominance and oligarchic dominance of the executive branch. The College was an awkward political compromise slapped together at the Constitutional Convention at the last minute to keep the small states from bailing on the whole "let's be a nation" process. Its effect over time has been to cause coastal urban opinions to dominate legislative politics, while rural opinions dominate executive politics. This is the fundamental, natural split accidently built into US politics - rural conservatism vs. urban progressivism. The suburbs are the swing vote - when they feel comfy, they vote to maintain the status quo; when they feel threatened, they vote for change. Reagan was, and Gingrich and W are radicals, Clinton is a moderate, Bush Senior is a conservative. Over the long term, parties in the US have nothin' to do with stances. The sole function of each party is to operate the electoral machinery, and there is only room for two teams at the national level. Campaign Machines, that's all.
What a weird game....
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What's really disturbing about so many of the posts on this thread is the assumption that President = government. That is a very, very dangerous equation, but one that is becoming more and more true with every passing day. What makes American government uniquely American is the rock/paper/scissors checks and balances which the current admin. has been systematically eroding since day one.
Really, this erosion has been progressing slowing prolly from the time of Lincoln, with our government becoming more and more Europeanized and pyramidal. Americans have always had a romance with the Presidency. I think it was Rue who once said on this board that the American Presidency was like electing a new king every 4 years. Interestingly, Christianity itself is the ultimate pyramidal government with "executive branch" swallowing up all "other gods" and making itself omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient.
George Orwell called, he wants his plot back.
That said, I think there is an argument to be made that the Republican ethos lends itself to the executive branch and the Democratic ethos lends itself to the legislature. I think our government has reflected the will of the People best when Republican and Democratic power have been most at loggerheads. When that happens true bipartisanship naturally occurs.
But, as now, when one party maintains control of ALL THREE branches of our federal government (hey, historians, has that ever happened before?) we get the kind of garbage government we've been getting for the past 5 years. It's like marrying off siblings: all the recessive, maladaptive traits start to express themselves and the children come out cross-eyed and hemophiliac.
Hey, does anyone know if any of the founding fathers noticed the potential for one party controlling all three branches of government? Seems something along the lines of antitrust legislation to safeguard against one party gaining control of the entire government pie would go a long way toward preventing American fascism from taking hold.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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The U.S. doesn't have a natural governing party. The vast majority of Americans are moderates, so neither the Democrats, nor the Republicans deserve the title. The problem is that most moderates dont get excited easily. That's why most political parties out there are on one far end of the spectrum or another, because the crazies on both sides are easily exciteable, and go out and give the extra effort to form a party. If there was a moderate third party that didn't get shot down by the Democrats or Republicans, they would most likely win almost every election. Because there isn't, folks are forced to choose between the lesser of two evils, exactly the kind of thing the founding fathers tried to prevent when they invented the system.
You're welcome on my boat. God ain't.
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If Republicans were actually Republicans - you know:
- Fiscal Responsibility
- Staying the F out of people's lives
- Supporting small business / anti-monopoly
- Making a government so small it can barely be seen
- Privatizing all government services because the government can never compete / be as efficient as a coporate service for profit.
You know... the whole REPUBLICAN thing - then yes, I think they'd be the natural party for many Americans.
If the Democrats were actually Democrats - you know:
- Supporting honest living wages for American workers
- Rejecting illegal immigration because it takes from American jobs and goes against union working laws and conditions
- Treating Social Security, Welfare, and the possibility of socialized health care as a hand up, not a hand out
You know, the whole DEMOCRAT thing - then yes, they'd be the natural party for many Americans.
//Wondering if Libertarian = Browncoat?
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