Party of the People?

[Lord Bitememan]

Continuing with my idea of submitting a few of my old ideas from other forums, here's the next in the series:

One of the more interesting excercises in politics these days is the penchant of the Democratic party to style themselves as the "Party of the people." It's interesting, because electoral results since the civil war really do not bear this stance out.

Consider, for a second, that a party of the people should probably, in elections they win, carry something of a popular mandate. By this I mean, they should probably win 50% or more of the popular vote in elections. History, on this matter, does not back up such a standard for the Democrats. Since the civil war, Democrats have, in 7 elections, won 50% or more of the popular vote. Republicans have, by comparison, won 50% of the popular vote or more in 15 elections since 1868. This is 28 years of what might be considered majoritarian presidency compared with 60 years for the Republicans. However, there is a catch. In one of those elections, Hayes-Tilden, Tilden captured 50% of the popular vote but lost the presidency. So, actually, you have 24 years of Majoritarian presidency under the Democrats, as opposed to 60 years under the Republicans. Well, not bad one might think. However, you have to also consider that 4 of those elections were under FDR. In as much, the popular electoral majorities of the Democrats are contributed mostly out of FDR, and aside from Tilden only two Democrat presidents have captured 50% or more of the popular vote and the presidency. One was Johnson, the other was Carter, both of whom enjoyed only one term after their elections. The Republicans? Their majority victories come from 11 different candidates.

Many things can be said about the Democrats in their favor, but a clear party of the people, not quite.  

[Garrett31212]

I wouldn't even consider any Democratic Presidency before the 60's the same as a democratic presidency after it. The New Left and the Old Left are completely different viewpoints.

Besides, all communistic organizations fancy themselves "of the people" when really they're only of the poor and lazy.  

[Lord Bitememan]

I wouldn't consider communists as being for the poor. Mostly communists are ivory tower academics who think they know how to run society better than everyone else. In actuality the poor still care about things like identity, national pride, religion, and economic advancement. These are all values communists reject.  

[Garrett31212]

You know what I mean. The Socialists always claim to be for the people in general, even though they are only supported by the poor because they support redistributing the money from the rich to the poor to make a a classless society. Communist countries such as North Korea are formally known as "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea". Mao Zedong, the leader of the Communist revolution in China aided the North Koreans during the Korean War with the "People's Volunteer Army".

The Left fancies itself for the people want, while the Right supports the overall good of the collective.  

[Kingthor2282]

The Soviet union was also "For the People".....Need I remind you of how that turned out?  

[James628]

Garrett31212

I wouldn't even consider any Democratic Presidency before the 60's the same as a democratic presidency after it. The New Left and the Old Left are completely different viewpoints.

Besides, all communistic organizations fancy themselves "of the people" when really they're only of the poor and lazy.

befor the 60's the democratic party was manly racist southerners , now its mostly libral big city people  

[The Hallowed Mouse]

Yeah... it's actually quite interesting... I was thinking that maybe there's a social aspect to it...