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Why I Admire the Democratic Party
I will stipulate that the policies of the Democrat Party are both fiscally irresponsible and socially destructive. I will stipulate that Democrats lie to advance their destructive and irresponsible policies. I will stipulate that Democrat politicians are by and large corrupt, irresponsible, and often display a disturbing hostility toward Constitutional rights.
Having said that, there are things one cannot help but admire, even envy, about the Democrat Party versus the Republican Party.
1. Democrat Leaders Don’t Attack Their Own Members.
In the Republican Party, merely wanting fiscal responsibility is enough to get you labeled a “whacko bird” or one of “the crazies” by the party’s own leadership. There is no Democrat equivalent to Congressman Peter King or Senators Lindsey McCain and John Graham, advancing themselves by constantly attacking parts of their own coalition. And it’s not as though the Democrat Party doesn’t have crazy people attached to it: Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee, Code Pink, Fortney “Pete” Stark, #BlackLivesMatter, and Baghdad Jim McDermott, to name a few. But when have you heard them attacked by other members of their party, much less the leadership? The Democrats follow the Republicans 11th Commandment better than Republicans do.
2. Once Elected, Democrats Deliver for the People Who Elected Them.
The Democrat Party has one basic value proposition: “Vote for us and we’ll take money away from other people and buy you things with it.” It’s what their voters want, and when elected, they deliver. What do Republicans promise their voters? “We’re going to cut spending and get the Government off your backs.” Yet, spending is never cut, and the bureaucracy continuously grows. In fact, there has not been a major piece of conservative legislation passed since the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. In fact, it often appears that the GOP leadership spends the bulk of its time in office trying to figure out how to sell out the people who elected them and make deals with the Democrats. And on that note…
3. Democrats Always Win “Bipartisan Compromises”
Hypothetically, liberal Democrats always want to increase spending, and conservative Republicans always want to cut it. So how is it that every “compromise” ends up increasing spending, just not as much as Democrats want? Instead of decreasing, just not by as much as conservatives would like? The much-hated sequester didn’t really cut spending, just the rate of growth. Baseline budgeting is suggested year after year, but never comes anywhere near being implemented.
And consider the grand “Bipartisan Compromise” of the Gang of Eight Immigration Bill. Democrats pretty much got everything they wanted; a path to citizenship for a constituency that votes 70-80 percent Democrat and higher levels of future immigration for that constituency. What did conservatives get? A bunch of border security promises and some fines for illegal immigrants, all subject to the waivers and whims of the Democrat president.
4. Democrats Never Give Up On Their Policies, Even When They’re Unpopular
When Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi took over the Congress in 2007, they didn’t just wring their hands and say, “Gee, we would really like to push the agenda our constituents elected us for, but we just don’t have the votes.” No, they went to work advancing the left’s agenda. Even if they didn’t get the payoff right away, they began laying the groundwork. Democrats pushed for state run health care for years before winning Obamacare. Democrats pushed gay marriage for years, even when it was unpopular. Even when they didn’t openly support it, they didn’t try and alienate those who did. Democrats still support partial birth abortion and gun control, even though they are massively unpopular. They aren’t easily cowed into abandoning their priorities by harsh word or a legislative setback.
5. Democrats Don’t Act Like They Are Embarrassed by Their Own Base.
One reason it’s so demoralizing to be part of the conservative base is that even when you win an election, you still feel like you’re losing the agenda. The Tea Party helped deliver the Congress to Republicans in 2010 and 2014, and what thanks do they get? The party leadership seems embarrassed by them and only too happy to deride them as “radical extremists” just as the Democrat Party and the media do. The Democrat coalition, on the other hand, includes environmental extremists, radical feminists, reconquistas, socialist revolutionaries, and a menagerie of fringe leftists. Whatever Democrats may think privately about their fringe, you never hear them trashing any constituency openly.
It is a shame that the Democrat Party, with policies so destructive, actually manages itself in a way that guarantees the advancement of those policies. The Republicans either have no grasp of how the game is played, or have no real interest in advancing a more conservative set of policies. Maybe both.
Published in Politics
I am generally in agreement and respect the democrats for their relentless consistency and transparency.
1. This hasn’t always been the case. The progressive divide between the left and the blue dog democrats wasn’t a garden party. Additionally the split with the DLC while not as colorful as the current republican insurrection was also rough.
3. Great example. See Marco Rubio.
5. Agree they don’t do this in the open, but I bet if you asked a member of the CBC behind closed doors the response would be different than the public face.
You will probably get a lot of pushback for this article, but I think it is good.
Great post. Top to bottom.
I suspect GOP congressional leaders cave to the Dems because they want to be loved, rather than respected. And they can only get the lovin’ with the help of the media, the mouth-piece of the Left.
I think the reason for much of this is the actual divide between factions in the Democratic party isn’t as big as it is in the Republican Party.
After the ACA was passed and the 2010 election this is exactly correct.
I think they cave because a lot of them still believe government is the solution, not the problem.
Your answer is even more depressing than mine.
I think they cave because unfortunately the majority of American’s like free government goodies.
And this is still even more depressing than Brent’s POV. Thanks, guys, for cheering me up this morning.
In the macro I think you are correct, but in majority R districts that isn’t the case and thus the situation we are enduring now.
51% fit your description, but what you find in the districts are democrat strongholds that re-elect their reps 80-20. Similar imbalances often exist on the republican side.
Is it a Congressman’s responsibility to represent 51% of the country or 60%+ of their district.
The republicans are in a crack because many of them come from 60%+ districts that don’t believe the free stuff bait and switch, but while they are seated in Congress try to represent the 51% (and K street) that wants something for nothing.
Are you sure about that? There was a lot of griping about government meddling with Medicare during the Obamacare debates coming from elder members of the right.
The intent of our constitutional system was that a Congressman was responsible to his constituents.
I’m not convinced that when pressed the majority of people in a standard Republican district believes this. People say they are against government programs, but try and take them away and they revolt.
There is more to the world than Medicare.
When the Democrats want to get something done, they label something a ‘Crisis’ and keep pounding away at it. They talked about a health care crisis for years before they passed Obamacare to lay the groundwork. They made up horror stories about the uninsured dying for lack of coverage and made it seem like the problem was much larger than it was so they could impose the Government takeover of Health Care.
The reason people don’t buy into the need for austerity or entitlement reform is because Republicans don’t create an atmosphere of crisis around our unsustainable fiscal policies or warn what will happen if the system isn’t reformed. If Republicans talked about unsustainable deficits and entitlement crises all the time, eventually people would realize that cuts are necessary. But the GOP treats the consequences of debt and entitlement bloat as abstract things.
Can anyone name a major democratic policy victory from the years 1980-to 2007?
That’s a full generation where the democrats failed to deliver anything of note. This notion that the democrats are super effective, while the republicans are utterly ineffective is just defeatism unmoored from reality.
I would argue that the slow ratchet of government spending, regulation and debt always moves in one direction.
1. McCain-Feingold
2. The 1993 Clinton Tax Increases
3. No Child Left Behind (Written by Sen. Ted Kennedy)
4. The creation of the TSA as a unionized Federal Bureaucracy
5. The 1990 George H.W. Bush Tax Increases
6. The Simpson-Mazzoli Amnesty Bill of 1986
7. Stopping Robert Bork’s Appointment to the Supreme Court (1987)
8. The Sarbanes-Oxley Financial Regulation Act (2002)
9. Family and Medical Leave Act (1993)
10. Motor Voter Act (1993)
7 out of 10 of these were passed when a Republican was president.
That is a heck of a list.
But Obamacare arguably wipes out that entire pause, and it’s arguable that Republicans made some Democratic policy victories for them (No Child, Medicare Part D). So, maybe there was less demand for Democrats in that time because Republicans were moving the ball forward enough to satisfy people.
Part of that is Republican voters are extremely pro-government as a whole. Practically no mainstream Republican voters talk about dismantling poor to rich welfare programs like social security and Medicare, everyone just assumes they are necessary and good. And can we ever spend enough money on the military? That’s a pretty terrible place of wide agreement.
The original post makes some excellent points, as does comment 15.
However, it is incorrect to say that the Democrats always deliver what the majority of the people in their base want. The best and most recent example I can think of is Obama’s continued operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, after saying throughout his campaigns that he would pull out American troops immediately. The 1960s anti-war movement was a big part of his election constituency, and he completely ignored them once he was in office. Gitmo–another instance–was kept open and fully occupied throughout most of his first term.
Clinton signed NAFTA about three days into his first term after campaigning negatively about it for a year.
I got hooked on Rush Limbaugh’s list of 100 promises made by Clinton during his campaign. If I could locate it, it would be good for laughs.
And Clinton did not fight school choice once he was elected, even though the teachers’ unions were large supporters and contributors to his campaign.
There is no single Democratic voter the candidates have to please, and the same is true for Republicans.
What I have noticed throughout my voting lifetime is that the Democrats get what they really want, and they do it by hanging it on a Republican every time.
They are really good at that.
And that is actually reassuring in some ways–I don’t think they have a death wish for the country, although they sound like they do during campaign seasons.
I know people get tired of this being said, but in the grand scheme of things, there literally isn’t much difference between the two parties. I mean, sure, Republicans tend to mean we’re taxed slightly less and the growth in spending is slightly less, and that’s good, but Democrats are still very pro military, and Republicans are still very pro welfare state, they would just like to transfer a little of the money they take from us from one pile to the other.
One more point: I used to have a mental list of times when Democrats did something conservatives would do and Republicans did something liberals would do.
My favorite example was one I stumbled upon when I was at war with the EPA many years ago.
I discovered that when it became legal to drill for oil out in George’s Bank off the East Coast, Democrat Michael Dukakis got on the first plane to Texas to sell oil drilling leases. It was George H. W. Bush who stopped him from doing that.
And the toughest version of the Clean Water Act–so tough it has been impossible for the nation to comply–came from Ronald Reagan. The bill he signed called for tertiary treatment for all sewage waste put into our fresh water and ocean water coastal waters. Ronald Reagan was my hero for doing that, but still he was a Republican. (By the way, if you Google Reagan and Clean Water Act, you will get the MSM spin as your results. Trust me, I spent two days in a local library researching this years ago. Reagan signed it and wanted to sign it, and I am proud of being on his team. Here’s some interesting background, but I haven’t read it yet.)
Stereotyping people is almost always wrong, and infinitely so with the labels “Democrat” and “Republican.”
They get a heck of an assist from the Fed on that as well.
No one from the GOP, much less the media, ever says “Hey Congressman, what do you say about what Maxine Waters said yesterday?”
Timestamped 19 minutes after the question was put.
edit: Objection withdrawn
1990 Clean Air Act
1990 Civil Rights Act
1990 Americans with Disabilities Act
1993 National Voter Registration Act (motor-votor law)
I was mostly just pointing out it that despite the implication of the original question that it would be pretty hard to name Democrat accomplishments, it only took a few minutes, including typing time and citing years.
I gotta put a quarter in the jar; jumping to conclusions, like I did.
I should have asked what you meant.
Look, I’m very sympathetic to the sentiment of the post, and there’s a lot of truth to it. But, I don’t think it’s as bad as we all think it is. Look at the charts in this article about Boehner’s accomplishments.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/09/29/why_the_gop_may_regret_losing_boehner.html
I imagine that many people are like me: completely frustrated by so many years of Obama’s reign, supported by the adoring media. Dems were willing to break the rules when they had 59 senators, but we haven’t been willing to do the same, which completely reinforces the point of the article. It’s frustrating!
But it’s not as bad as it seems. Without GOP opposition, you can bet the deficit would be double, cap and trade would have passed, and owning a gun would require a letter from the President.
We also shouldn’t forget that, for all George W’s faults, the Democrats appeared almost clinically insane during his terms. Remember the Dean Scream of 2004? He was a front runner in that race! I suspect that in many ways the liberals of 2000 through 2007 felt similarly to how conservatives feel today.