Democrat, wish they were one in the same, but they are not.

It is easy for me to do but it also causes lots of angst.

Kidding!

As has already been stated, the voter.

I am wondering if you mean, what policies constitute following the democratic party? I am not really sure what you mean

Record all votes in the House and Senate, see which votes garnered majority support from Democrats and how large that majority was, and then see how individual Democrats voted. The further away they are from the majority the more likely it is they are out of step with their fellow Democrats.

If you remove the quantitative analysis from the equation then you left with the proposition that every one of us is a philosopher king or queen and each of us gets to decide who is and isn't a Democrat.

R or D. Two viable choices. The rest, because of the way American politics is, are really just making a statement.
So - the votes kind of decide, but then we are constantly told if we do not vote D - no matter how we feel about the candidate - the dreaded R will win.
So - if Hillary has bought or has won the nomination, my vote for her does not mean I think she is a Democrat. It merely means that I think she is less of a Republican than the other guy.

As far as determining what voters are, the voters are all over the place - don't care, family always GOP or Dem, single issue, afraid of the other team. And many voters change how they feel about either party. Like religion, ya tend to stay with how you were brought up or how you decided when you could first vote. And now, things are so gridlocked that voting based on one issue seems futile, because it seems like once in Washington, the parties are immovable behemoths, and not very much gets done anyway.

So - no one decides who is a Democrat, really. We all snip and snipe, but I doubt that any of it has any effect on actual voting. It sure does not affect how I vote. The DNC and Big Money decide who runs for office, though, at the top.

So, yeah, we are each of us either a philosopher king or queen - or a damned sheep. And me deciding who is or is not a Democrat means nothing - only my support and my vote count.

favor. In fact, just saw one of them planning to do this on Reddit a couple of days ago.

So no, I would say Democrats are easily recognizable by their stand on issues.

And so are Republicans.

Ask if Hillary or Rahn Emmanuel is a Democrat. They'll say no because that's what they declared.

But I'm pretty sure she never read Catch-22, what with all the loyalty oaths and accusations.

Peeeeeeeeeeee uuuuuuu.

Not at all.

It's what some people do instead of posting substance.

LOL

I thought it was an ironic question considering your handle

come on......... its funny

If I thought I would be here so long I prolly would have put more time and thought into choosing my handle... I used to be a a huge Miami Dolphins fan and my handle on the long defunct Miami Herald Miami Dolphins board used to be DolfanSinceBirth...That's how I came up with my current handle...

IMHO, unless a person is a total apostate like Joe Lieberman or Zell Miller I have no problem according a person who says he or she is a Democrat the benefit of the doubt.

I was just joking around


anyway as far as your question goes
I grew up in the south and saw separate drinking fountains

Enacted by democrats of those states..... so to me the term
is rather meaningless label and transitory if you really think about it.

IMHO, setting the bar too high comes with as many difficulties as setting the bar too low.


The D and R parties are catch all parties...The entire Constitution is set up to militate against a multi party system. They are of necessity going to attract a wide or somewhat wide spectrum of views.

I had two semesters of southern politics in pol sci and did my final senior paper on Florida from 1944 to 1976 using a computer mainframe to access the correlation of demographic and sociological voting structures, patterns and trends..

1976-the present would be interesting... The Republicans control the House, the Senate, the governorship, every cabinet position, and the state Congressional delegation despite having less registered voters than the Democrats.

that is functionally a corporate establishment party with a a few pieces of flair to appear more catchall than is supported by reality.

Well, one party created the Affordable Care Act, which while far from being perfect, insured millions of previously uninsured adults and also expanded Medicaid to insure previously uninsurable working class and indigent adults . So lives have been improved and saved.


One party has voted to put progressive judges on the Court so a gay guy won't be thrown in the hoosegow for giving his boyfriend a blow job or a gay gal won't be thrown in the hoosegow for going down on her girlfriend.

One party has voted to protect Medicaid and Food Stamps rather than turn them into block grant programs that would make those programs into sitting ducks to be dismantled by Republican governors and legislatures.

One party has voted to protect Medicare from Republican attempts to turn it into a voucher program that leaves our elder citizens at the mercy of the insurance companies.

In closing one party is interested in some sort of safety net and protecting the rights of the vulnerable and one party isn't.

change for some. For myself, I have lived and existed as a Democrat, I plan to remain this way. The name calling and assignment by others is not acceptable. I choose Democrat, I will remain a Democrat.

Of course, we can have some "must believe" tests and some with a little "wiggle room".

Then we have to decide what a "passing score" will be. We don't want the passing grade to be too low or being a "Democrat" has no meaning. But if we put it too high there won't be enough "Democrats" to make a difference.

on edit: I just realized one of the problems with this idea. Who decides who the 'real Democrats' are who get to come up with the "real Democrat" test questions.

Unless they are apostates like Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman who left the reservation long ago I am willing to give most folks who call themselves a Democrat the benefit of the doubt...

I used to live in FL... My Senators were Nelson and Rubio...Senator Nelson probably votes with the Democrats 80%, 90% of the time. I suspect there are folks here who would say he isn't a "true" Democrat but his votes suggest otherwise.

As a sheep in wolves clothing hoping to sway people to their superior "reason" are not Democrats.

Example: certain people who think disability social services need to be further cut and reformed because they are entitlements, full of fraud and waste, taken advantage of by alcoholics and drug-users, and whip out the cherry-picked examples of a few high profile fraud cases as per Fox strategy knowing full well that the ramification of cutting services as a rebuke to these ambulance-chasing lawyers means indigence and dying in a ditch for all the other disabled people that receive those services and benefits.

Hope you all know who I'm talking about. I've already called them out to TPTB here, the only DU person I've ever called out as "not a Democrat", and they are still here. Regularly putting on the pose.

I would rather ten fraudsters get SSDI than one eligible person denied service.

I am a member of the Democratic Party because it speaks to my values.

and subject to removal from the Crosscheck lists?

Hard to keep track, you must improve your DU skills.

I expect to see better in thread 7.

Could you point out the exact past 5th thread where enough became an issue?

"about 5 threads ago" is misleading and unproven.

Just another day in the unreal world of the GD echo chamber for you.

Did you want to ask me your question here?

I want to see 5 threads ago when enough was an issue.

Was that on the GD echo chamber or the Sanders group mini echo chamber

Personally, I don't give a rip about what anyone calls themselves. I'm much more interested in their history, policies, how they stand on issues, and principles.

I get to decide that I'm a Democrat.

Unless I need to get someone's approval?

So, maybe, we all get to decide.

nt

for us it has to be saying we are members of the Democratic party. When we vote in a primary our registration card gets stamped with that party.

Now this link has at least one person who thinks they know better:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026585878

When it comes to traditional Democratic values, I think it's pretty easy to determine if a candidate embraces them, pays lip service to them, or rejects them - that is, if one is being honest with one's self. A great many will convince themselves that a candidate embraces Democratic values when they don't, because a great many are more interested in partisan warfare than in policy.

who've worked inside the party and slogging it out over the years… party affiliation sure as hell matters.

The Democratic Party has the right to kick anyone from their party if they feel that someone doesn't agree with them. Of course, this scenario will hardly ever happen since they need every vote they can get, and would be scared of alienating people.

Little known fact: I evaluate all democratic applications and approve or reject them, mostly based on my present mood.

Very simple.

politics.

Or Ideology.

In other words... Jesus.

And that is somewhat unfortunate. I wish our parties actually enforced standards of membership closer to what they do in Europe. In Europe at least the parties stand for something. Of course I might not make the cut but I'm sure someone would take me...

Surprised you didn't know that.

If person X says "I am a Democrat" and chooses to vote for Democrats, then that's identification and confirming action all sewn up.

But to the broader question of being philosophically a Democrat, there's another easy test. The party's active, locally elected delegates get to vote on a platform every 4 years.

There is not a single word in it with which I disagree. The same is unlikely to be true for many people here who take it upon themselves to determine who is a "real" Democrat. There is unlikely to be anything more official available.