The Partisan Divide on Issues

[David Horn]

(05-18-2020, 05:42 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(05-17-2020, 08:28 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Good thing you're not in charge of words then.  

I’ve generally been of the Republican / conservative / red against Democrat / progressive / blue labeling school.  No reason to change now.  If they call themselves conservative, that’s good enough for me.  If you have suddenly become a fan of the leader of that faction, you are stuck with the label.

But I sympathize with the dictionary definition of the word being at odds with their actual policies.  The problem with being the party of the elites is that there are not enough elites to win an election.  You have to grab onto enough populist issues to actually win.  Thus you get a weird connections.  In the late Gilded Age they were isolationists, but by Bush 43’s time they were Neo Cons pushing Neo Colonialism.  In Lincoln’s time they were pushing the northern Robber Baron perspective and black rights.  By Nixon’s and Reagan’s time it was the Southern Strategy.  In short, they have flip flopped so many times over the years that their approach of winning at all costs has not left them with much in the way of a one word comprehensive strategy.

But the key is that you are an owner.  You know who butters your bread.  You have always favored the elites over the people.  That puts you on the red side, and the red side.  It is all natural for one who values green paper more than grandma.

I'll have to agree with Kinser -- a least a little.  We're in the midst of a transition to <insert the ideology of choice> on the right.  That really means that the right is now just as confused about themselves as the left.  Let's agree that neoliberalism has run its course, but powerful neoliberals still control the Democratic Party.  This should be their last hurrah, with the only Silent running for President with a real chance of getting there.  On the GOP side, its their version of neoliberals and neocons that are in decline, and the hyper nationalists on the rise.  That qualifies as a realignment in my book, but its hell-and-gone from complete on either side.  Because the GOP is the more regimented party, the transition there has been more sudden and less well planned.