Democrats often ask progressives: how can you say that there’s no difference between Democrats and the Republican party? While there are differences of tone, on the most important issues there is little to no difference in policy. And Congressional votes reflect that.
The Difference between Democrats and Republicans Equals Zero
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There IS a difference, though it’s not huge. All the issues that you mentioned are MONEY issues, and they agree on those. But they disagree on non-money issues. For instance, should we love gay people or hate gay people? Should we let our gay people participate in our bombing of other countries, or should we exclude them from that joyous activity? These are questions that have little effect on our wallets. On all of them, the Democrats favor love, while the Republicans favor some traditional, conformist notion of morality.
I agree with you Ted but in my circle of friends the issues you highlight are abstract and uninteresting. What my friends are excited about are:
(1) abortion rights. This is HUGE for my wife and all her friends. It’s impossible to overstate how important supporting abortion rights is to the women I know.
(2) opening the borders. Myself and one other friend support stricter immigration controls, particularly for unskilled labor. It’s a view I’m very quiet about, because most of my friends consider that racist. Most support granting citizenship to all illegal immigrants (a term they say is racist), some support completely open borders.
There are a couple other issues my friends worry about but much less so: green policy, paid family leave, pronouns.
On all these issues, there is a clear difference between the GOP and the Democrats.
Unfortunately, free trade, and war don’t even register as issues among all but one of my friends. The same one that wants stricter immigration control is anti vax, anti free trade, and anti military, wants to disband the CIA– they used to call him radical left and love him, now he is accused of being a closet Trumper and disinvited from parties
Andy’s two issues point to another fundamental similarity between democrats and Republicans. Both the abortion issue and the immigration issue are described imprecisely by almost all involved. The issue isn’t abortion. The issue is unwanted pregnancy. Both sides have majorities that would agree with the following statement: “Unwanted pregnancies should be reduced.” That’s the starting point. Reduce those pregnancies and you, by definition, are reducing abortions. Immigration? It isn’t one issue anymore than guns are one issue. There’s maybe five or six complaints about immigration and all can be fixed. But NOT fixing the issue, be it gun control. abortion, immigration, lets both sides keep asking for donations from the voters “to finally end _______” with the blank being whatever way the politician swears up and down she feels (today).
The difference between the Republicans and Democrats? The Republicans are the party of willful ignorance, while the Democrats are the party of woeful inadequacy. “Supporting abortion rights” is the Democratic equivalent of “grab ’em by the (short hairs) and they’ll do anything you want.”
Immigration policy is an interesting one. As someone who used to be one of the rare Euro-Americans doing farm labor, I know this country depends on people who are used to working for low wages (which are a big step up from what they could make at home) to do the grunt work. Cut off that flow, and wages will have to rise substantially, which will substantially diminish profits. Can’t have that, now, can we?