[redeux]

There are a lot of similarities when it comes to their tendency towards Corporatocracy and military spending, but it largely ends there.

When it comes to taxes, fiscal priorities, rights for individuals, foreign policy, crime and punishment, and of course social issues they are very different and in most cases take the opposite approach.

For example, Republicans want lower taxes for the wealthy while Democrats want lower taxes for the lower and middle classes. Republicans want to restrict individuals rights - especially for non-christian white males, Democrats don't. Republicans favor heavy handed punishment including capital punishment, Democrats favor rehabilitation and a ban on capital punishment. Republicans want to blow up the national debt through tax breaks and pork, Democrats want to control the debt through responsible spending and investments. Republicans want to stop investment in education and science while Democrats want to increase investment in these areas. These are all very real and not just aesthetics.

[Freedom2]

> Republicans want to restrict individuals rights

This is a curious comment. HackerNews has always told me it was in fact the opposite - it's easy enough to source quotes from over the years. Could this forum have been wrong all this time?

[giardini]

The proper answer is that both Republicans and Democrats seek to restrict the others' individual and group rights, whenever possible.

Freedom2 says>"Could this forum have been wrong all this time?"<

Surely you jest, Sir! My hat is off to you!8-))

[TheOtherHobbes]

Democratic voters want those things. It's not at all obvious the party establishment does.

The tell is that when Republicans push through their policies, Democratic opposition is weak and ineffectual. Instead of ferocious opposition the Dems send one of their famous sternly worded letters.

Since at least 2000 the party establishment has absolutely refused to do any of the things it could do to change this - including packing the Supreme Court, supporting and promoting grass roots activism between elections, using the filibuster, and so on.

Biden couldn't even get any of Trump's prosecutions over the line - including televised evidence of insurrection, and treasonous mishandling of official state secrets (!)

However it's spun, there is a very obvious reluctance to challenge the extremes of Republicanism.

The party is far more likely to censure one of its non-centrists than its centrists, while the opposite is true of the Republicans.

[maxwell]

The Democrats operate as if they're controlled opposition. It's like their donors pay them to blunt their base. They haven't accomplished anything legislatively this century beyond pass the 1993 Republican healthcare plan under Obama's name. They couldn't even raise the minimum wage.

[MentatOnMelange]

In my experience this is dead on. People have short attention spans but this has been happning the whole 21st century. In 2008 Obama won the primary despite the best efforts of leadership to nominate clinton. They even scrambled the "super delegates" (delegates who vote for the candidate chosen by senior leadership) hoping that even if Obama won more delegates, they could override the voters choice.

Of course, they failed, and democrats won 2 elections in a row running a candidate labeled a radical socialist. Obama became the only 21st century president to win the poplar vote twice, and the DNC has been trying to drag the party back in the 20th century ever since, blaming their own voters when it doesn't work.

It boggles my mind that they refused to even engage with the "undecided movement", which created a grass-roots get out to vote movement out of thin air. In swing states no less.

The starkest contrast between the two parties is womens rights and to a lesser extent LGBTQ rights. Although I'm not even sure how true this is anymore with so many politicians backing Cuomo, who resigned because an investigation found overwhelming evidence he sexually harrassed and assaulted female employees. And I'm pretty sure people like Chuck Schumer and other centrists view the LGBTQ community as a liability.