You have to separate republicans from the Republican Party. You also have to separate the rhetoric and noise from the behavior and results, because both the Republicans and Democrats are centrist parties going after the middle class vote. The Republican party is way better at marketing — but what they’re marketing is no more different than GM is from Ford. Over time, you have to wonder what Republicans are conserving and what Democrats are liberating.
The Republicans are a minority party: only about 1/3 of voters identify themselves as Republican. They dominate in rural and suburban areas (particularly in the center of the country). But they have a very well oiled political machine that is way more effective than the Democrats — in organizing, fund raising, and manipulating public opinion. The Republicans own (literally) most of the media, and they completely dominate talk radio.
Economically, the party advocates corporate interests under “conservative” branding. But WiseUP: pay attention to the results, not the words. While the party talks about small government, the programs they put in are huge welfare programs for drug companies (Medicare drug benefit), service industries (suppressing the minimum wage), and the oil industry ($30 B in tax breaks). Republicans lower taxes, but they are also responsible for 2/3 of the national debt across all history. And removing the “death tax” lowered taxes only for the top 0.5% of the country — the people that own most of the corporations, stocks and investment property in the country.
Socially, the party advocates cutting or privatizing nearly all social programs under the banner of promoting individual responsibility. But WiseUP: the policies they advocate don’t lead to the results they promised. For example, divorce rates in “red states” are higher than in “blue states,” and both Hugh Hefner and Bob Guccione report that most of their bunnies and pets come from “red states” (particularly Texas). Abstinence-only programs are statistically proven to not achieve their goals: teenagers that take celibacy vows have a higher rate of pregnancy and VD than those that don’t.
In foreign policy, the party essentially says military might and action are the only effective tools. Negotiation and the UN are empty wastes of time. But the Republican results don’t look so promising. The US is almost certainly less secure as a result of our go-it-alone strategy in Iraq, and there is now no doubt that Al Qaeda now uses IRAQ as a major training ground (where it didn’t before). Afghanistan is falling apart, and Al Qaeda / the Taliban have more fresh recruits than ever. On almost any measure, the US has been weakened and has less influence than it did on 9/11, let alone in the years before that.
Find out more…
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Grover Norquist: The single most powerful big government/tax fighter
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Republicans: What they say about themselves
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Democrats: What the opposition says
