Okay, this is not supposed to be another US bashing thread, I'm seriously interested in a question concerning US politics.

As we all know, there are two major political parties in the USA: Republicans and Democrats. No third party has managed to achieve a signifying amount of power yet. Now my question is: Where are the real differences between these two parties? From an outside view, it is hard to discover any differences besides rhetoric at all, especially in international politics. Probably the difference can be seen in "everyday politics" that is hardly visible in other countries? Probably there are major differences in fact, they're just not known worldwide?

I wish I were kidding, but I seriously doubt if there were any differences. Sure, they might SAY different things before election, but when they get there, they do the same thing. Would have Gore attacked Iraq? Most likely. Would have Bush gone into Serbia? Probably. Of course there are smaller issues that they disagree on (Abortion and Affirmative Action, off the top of my head) but, international policy seems the same. I have to add that it seems that policy differs more from canidate to canidate than party to party.

Like what? I think this is exactly what Tapuak's question was aiming at and to be honest, I don't have a clue about that, either...

There are a few differences between them. If I were cynical, I'd simply say that each party is being corrupted by a different set of lobbyists. However, the only real difference I can see is that the Republicans are slightly more moralistic and the Democrats are slightly more laid-back (one of the reasons Gore didn't win was that he wasn't your typical Democrat).

Anyway, politics in the US is being achieved through a different channel - lobbying. Political parties are pretty much useless there, and their main function is to serve as a deterrent against the other party. Politicians can be threatened by being voted out of the office and replaced by a similar guy from the other party.

Another important issue to remember is the decentralized nature of the US political system. Often, local politicians are much more important for people's daily lives than federal-level politicians. On a local level, there is plenty of competition; for example, our county has representatives of six parties in its governing body - the Republicans, Democrats, Green, Freeholders, Libertarian and Independents (well, the last isn't really a party).

That's exactly the point I don't understand. I mean, the people are not that dumb. They will notice if somebody makes different promises before an election and does the same as his competitor afterwards. There must be a reason why certain groups of the population "traditionally" vote for a certain party/candidate of a party, such as "workers" usually vote for the Democrats. If the choice did not matter at all, there wouldn't be such a tradition most likely. Therefore I think there must be a basic difference in some issue that justifies this tradition.



Yes, that possibly is a difference. However, it's just a difference in the way a decision is made. If the actions are the same in the end, it doesn't really matter if the decision is based on moral or on pragmatism.



Of course parties are less powerful than in other countries. But you can apply my question to lobbying, too. Why does a company (or whatever) support a Democrate candidate and not a Rebublican one (or vice versa) if they represent the same policy anyway?

As for tradition, African Americans are "supposed" to vote for Democrats, as they are known as supporting civil rights (as if the Republicans don't... I dunno...) and rich white guys are suppose to vote for Republicans because they're known to give more tax breaks to the rich.

Republicans are suppose to be quite Christain, and I'm not really sure how to explain that. Democrats are suppose to be for "the working man!".

In theory, the economic belief for each one is that the Republicans say that if we insert money to large companies, the money will trickle down to the working man. The Democrats say if we give the working man money, they'll spend it, and the buisnesses will do better. Republicans are supposed to be against welfare, believe that one should "pull theirselves up by their own bootstraps" while Democrats are suppose to think welfare is a good idea. A mixed government will produce disasterous results like this sometimes, as Michigan's Welfare to Work program shows, and the end result is kids killing each other in school.

More and more people are saying that they vote Independant, which means that they vote on a race by race basis as to which party they'll vote for. Of course there is still a lot of people who don't even care about the races, and they'll go vote just so they can flip the Republican or Democrat lever, the lever that votes you all Republican or Democrat, which I've never seen a race where all the Republicans would make good canidates for the seats or vice versa. Ususally people inherit this voting behavior from their parents.



Must be nice, I don't even remember the last time an Independent was on the ballot, let alone any other party.

Actually, they support both. If you look at large companies, such as oil and tobacco producers, they spend millions on both Republicans and Democrats. Most money, however, is still invisible. Companies give money to lobby groups, which later distribute the money to various politicians. However, while companies need to show how much money they gave to a lobby group in their acoounting, lobby groups, as non-profit organizations, don't need to do that, and thus you'll never know which group supports which politician, and to what extent. It's quite possible that all the money is stpread roughly equally throughout both parties.

Tuss: Well, I was talking about county and township governments, not about the state senate. Even though you get other than the two major parties into New Jersey senate as well, from time to time...

Well, last thing I heard about that was the "Republicans" abolishing or castrating most 'civil rights'. But then again, so did the "Democrats" before them, so we're back to the question where the difference is...

Edited by Mr Creosote at 18:51 on April, 24th 2003

But of course. If you don't spend the money on the politicians, who's going to give you the tax breaks, etc...?


I was talking about county and township governments too...

In that case I must say you live in a weird neighborhood

That pretty much sums up the 'classic' role of the two biggest parties in Germany, too. Just that it isn't valid here today anymore. Both these parties follow the first ideology 100%.

That would be a basic difference in fact, if it wasn't theory. Because, if the parties are equally supported by the same lobbies as Netdanzr said, this difference will never have a practical effect. Lobbyist will force them to go for the first way anyway.



Yes, and it's the same paradox in Germany that some people still regularly vote for the same party although it hardly differs from another (and it does not represent their aims anyway).

Anyway, in an article I've read today, I found a pretty good definition of the main difference between Republicans and Democrats. Simply substitute "conservatives" for "Republicans" and "liberals" for "Democrats".