Why are Republicans criticized in the mainstream press for expressing differing views on major national issues, while Democrats are praised for their strength in adhering to party-dictated positions?
Resolving disagreements over a possible solution to a national problem seems more logical than blindly proffering one proposal as a political tactic.
Positions declared de rigueur and then followed in lockstep seem by their very nature to be suspect. Is it not self-evident that people who ponder real problems would have some debate on ways to overcome such problems? Declaring a correct answer without allowing room for reasonable doubt can block real consideration of acceptable ways -- one or more of which conceivably could be effective -- to resolve the problem at hand.
Thinking people must wonder why Hillary Clinton is, not only the Democratic frontrunner for 2016, but considered the nominee so early. Could her dominance be the influence of Democratic Party ideology.
This ideology seems to accept government dominance over individual actions. Intended or not, if such an ideology were to become law the exercise of individual free will would be severely handicapped.
Is that too harsh an assessment?
Leave aside for the sake of argument the wisdom of these issues, but rather consider the Democratic litmus tests assigned to abortion, same-sex marriage, LGBT behavior, climate change, governmental debt.Democratic politicians with open religious ties are prone to set their social (moral?) beliefs aside as easily as civil matters in the name of party allegiance.
Democratic Party discipline permits little if any deviation. Personal beliefs are tolerated only after attesting to the sovereignty of governmental authority.
Such “blood-brother” bonds are rarely found among Republicans as a party. The closest among GOP adherents is the vitriol heaped on RINOs. Republicans In Name Only are those believing in some social laxity simultaneously with fiscal governmental discipline. Conservative Republicans are more likely to apply litmus tests to others claiming the Republican label. Middle of the Road Republicans are more likely to espouse conservative ideals tempered by the reality of inter-partisan battles.
Democrats are more likely to organize and demonstrate that organization. Republicans seem to be somewhat lax in organizational skills. Look back a few years when Democrats and their public unions wing occupied the Wisconsin capitol. Was that episode akin to the sit-down strikes at automobile plants in the late 1930s? (Maybe even Republicans in retrospect can find some justification for the intensity of those strikes.)
No doubt American culture has coarsened in recent decades. Ozzy and Harriet long ago gave way to Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory. Movies went from one-foot- on-the-floor in bedroom scenes to full frontal nudity. Newspapers went from gray ladies full of local, national and international happenings supported by department store advertising to thinner and thinner full-color repositories of opinion, entertainment and gossip gasping for existence.
Our political parties have come to reflect cultural changes. Democrats probably reflect current culture more closely. Republicans still show nostalgia for Red Skelton and Jimmy Durante and chaperoned cotillions with long dresses and corsages.
From liberal to libertine.
From laissez faire to free enterprise.
Perhaps an oversimplification. Yet there is truth in the distillation.
Too much partisanship and a divided government in Washington have been cited by pundits and politicians alike. Any solution? Maybe the only one is the emergence of candidates on both sides of the aisle who can appeal to voters concerned about the future of citizenship, culture and a growing economy. Candidates must seek to meld idealism and practicality and then, upon gaining office, work to carry through with such lofty goals.
They must always act and vote to further the wellbeing of their constituents and their country, not themselves.
Impossible? Then representative government is impossible.
