DNC Gutted...

[Terrywoodenpic]

The main parties as they exist in both The UK and The USA are like an accident of Birth.
None of the parties are really relevant to todays problems. they are throw backs from previous times.
None of them have a large enough paid up membership to decide anything.

The voting Power is held by a very large majority of mainly "under educated and proud of it" people who will support any one holding out the most cookies. They are neither bright enough nor interested enough to realise that no one actually cares what they need or think.
Once the vote is in the bag they are not given another thought. May be a few crumbs but no cookies.

The real winners are always those that fund the winning side.
Obama was ineffective because both the Houses and the Money opposed him. Such bills as did pass were emasculated on the floor, and born to fail.

Trump will fail because he is trying to turn back time. and in many ways he is as dumb and prejudiced as the people who voted for him.
It is likely, that in time, His party will wish to disown him and largely ignore his wishes. His son in law who is in the position of helping to control Trumps assets, and at same time holding down a powerful but unelected white house role, will be seen to be completely compromised. by family patronage and divided loyalties.

 

[metis]

Anyway, just sort of sharing something I found. I think it might be a good thing for the DNC, honestly.

Agreed.

 

[Stevicus]

I don't understand this. The parties are completely different. 1 party puts forth middle class policies and the other puts forth corporate policies.
Politics has reached a level where the 'messaging' is now who can lie the most and who can propagandize Americans the most to influence their vote. Democrats are already the party of the working man. But with all the noise and fake news out there, it doesn't matter.

Social media and other outlets are being used now to influence the minds of the populace. That's why there's so much division.

I used to believe the parties were completely different, back in the 1970s and early 80s. My views on that started to change in the late 80s and early 90s, but I was not influenced by social media (as it didn't really exist back then). It wasn't "fake news" either, as the news seemed real enough. But I could see the direction the country was going during the Reagan era, when the Ronnie Robots were out in full force, along with the "Moral Majority" as they called themselves. I'm not sure exactly what happened to the Democrats, but there was a lot of deregulation, outsourcing, union-busting (such as the '83 copper strikes), and a generalized gradual diminishing of the middle/working class.

They weren't the Democrats of old, such as FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ, who oversaw the greatest economic expansion and overall improvement and enhancement of the quality of life across the board - at all levels of society. That's when the Democrats were truly the party of the working man. But during the Reagan era, they started to change for the worse. To me, Clinton seemed a Democrat "in name only," a Republican in sheep's clothing, and I will still never forgive him for betraying working people by signing NAFTA into law. The Democrats continued to support the so-called "global economy," which is just a buzzword for Republican-supported anarcho-capitalism on a global scale, which leads to exploitation, imperialism, war - all at the expense of the working class of America.

Now, I'm not entirely sure what to think of the Democrats or of the voters in general, since they seem to get suckered in by so much BS coming from both parties. I won't deny that there are some degrees of difference between the two parties, but they're not really as different as the media would like people to believe. Even the media themselves are suspect, as they've injected themselves into the fray, such as all this to do about "fake news" and the battle between news networks like CNN vs. Fox News. Am I expected to pick a side here?

I guess my sympathies all my life have always been with the working man, and I generally tend to root for the underdog and the oppressed classes. So, at least in theory, my political views and general philosophy on life tend to fall more towards the Democrats. They are the much-maligned "lesser of two evils," so to speak. But in the end, they might "talk the talk," but they don't really "walk the walk," and that's where they fail.

But if they do a housecleaning and maybe change their direction, then we'll see. I'm not writing them off by any means, but I'll wait to see if there are any changes around the mid-term elections. The Democrats might have to think outside the box a bit.

I don't pay all that much attention to social media, although I don't see much cause for people of the same economic strata to be divided or opposed to each other for any reason. But a lot of people are divided just the same. I see a lot of it happening here, with a lot of sniping back and forth (although this forum is rather tame compared to others out there). I'm not really sure why. I think it's just that some people can't seem to hold it together and have a disagreement without coming unglued. I guess it does go too far when the President starts coming unglued, but it seems reflective of an entire country seemingly on the verge of a nervous breakdown.