How can Democrats reunite this country?

We all know this country is divided, and that the Republican Party has made it worse for their own selfish ends. In my opinion, the greatest service any politician could perform right now is to help the healing of those divides begin. Fortuitously, Democrats have a realistic shot of winning back the House of Representatives. Our common ideology is the pursuit of the common good, and so we cannot govern if we fail to create a consensus on what the common good is, and that it should be pursued in the first place.

Please take my poll on which is the most problematic dividing line in America, and comment on what Democrats can do to bridge the divide on that issue.

The most problematic divide in America is gender. The Republican Party bases much of its appeal on its cult of machismo, as seen in their attempts to villify feminists and criminalize abortion. Their ideal world is one where women have no voice or power. They capitalize politically on male resentment over female empowerment. They also punish men who do not uphold the favored social roles of men by dominating women, because they are gay. People who do not respect traditional gender roles and stereotypes are a threat to Republican power.

The solution for this is not to allow ourselves to be bullied, because it reinforces the idea that those who oppose Republican machismo are weak, and therefore "feminized" in the Republican mentality. We do this by continuing to uphold the right to choose, and to champion gay marriage. Eventually, people who might have been swayed by Republicans will see that the world won’t end if women and gays are empowered. More men might learn that everyone benefits when women and gays are empowered, because relationships are healthier when each partner has an equal say, and people can focus on their own families, not other peoples that might be different.

Just kidding...........my wife is every bit by partner and in more ways than one is a far better person than I am.

:thumbsup:

Kerry actually had fewer female votes than Gore got. The was one of the most unexpected results of 2004. And breaking it down further shows what happened...
There was a major divide among women based on the marital status. The majority of married women voted for Bush. While the majority of single women voted for Kerry. In 2000, Gore won both majorities of single and married women. And the reason for this divide is said to be September 11th. Married women became worried about the security of their family. While single women had much different priorities.

What I notice is a polarization not on race or gender, but by party. The Democrats are running left, the Republicans are running right, and the moderates are shrinking. In 1980, 40% of Americans considered themselves "moderate." In 1990, this number shrank to 20%. In 2004, it shrank to 10%. And now they are saying it has further shrank to 5%. So what we are slowly seeing is a political polarization of the country. We are becomming a red-state/blue-state country. And I am sure you notice this. I do travel from time to time and I can tell you immediately if I am in a red or blue state just by feeling the social atmosphere. And that's not a good thing...it's very dangerous. That is what started to occur the decades prior to the Civil War. I'm not saying we are heading towards Civil War. But if we keep moving this way...politics in this country is going to get very ugly. And when that happens, violence and domestic terrorism will soon follow.

This might be an unjustifiable stretch, but marriage is the traditional expectation for women, yes? Is it so surprising that they would support a man whose party and mentality tells them that they are doing what women should? Versus single women who aren't fulfilling the tradition gender roles?

end everything with the word "war" in it, and you can't go wrong.

She is afraid for her grandchildren. Before 2000, she was afraid of a national attack from above and wanted the "Star Wars" umbrella. Too many of these women have no access to real information. And, sometimes, I don't think they really want it. They need reasons to keep voting with their social friends.

This whole dividing line between "liberals" and "conservatives" that is wholy manufactured and doesn't reflect ANYTHING going on in DC...Like when I hear blue colar guys bitch about those rich metrosexual "liberals" who have never worked a day in their lives.

Hands down, if Dems can solve our health care crisis, they will unite the country.

What the government needs to do is not just go on and pay the bill or write blank checks and let the hospitals fill the amount, but find ways to lower the price of the bill.

The other day I spent nearly a total of $400 to get rid of a simple ear infection. That's insane.

...that I mean ECONOMIC class, since people with a lot of money seldom have much class.

can represent both contingents easily. DON'T make it an issue, treat everyone equally (except tax-wise). Those that have so much money shouldn't mind losing some for the good of the country. Actually, as silly as that sounds, that's probably true.

each.

Repugs have a solid base of 20-30% that would vote for people like Bush if God thundered they were anti-christs. Such things as gay & lesbian rights, abortion, gun control, evolution, prayer in schools, etc. together give Repug candidates nearly 50% of the vote.

Even though * only has about 32% approval, other Repug candidates may survive so that we Dems have a tough battle to regain and keep control of congress.

I don't think this country has ever been very united except when attacked or at war. There will always be about 35% of the population who will oppose any Democrat or Democratic policy.

As to what is dividing the country: ignorance. Too many people blindly believe the right wing mythology about "free markets", "government incompetence", "tax cuts for the rich are good for everyone", "we should trust corporations to make good decisions, because the market will make them", "high health costs are due to lawsuits", "free trade is wonderful", "the Democrats won't protect you", etc. etc.

I think it will take many years to get even a modest improvement in the great American divide. Myths die slowly. The Republican hate machine is still too powerful.

The one suggestion I would make is return the fairness doctrine for the media.

This country may go from 51 repuke to 49 Dem, to 51 Dem, 49 repuke. It isn't going to united any time soon. This divide is real. There are just too many racists and too many fundie holy rollers for Dems to make more than a small dent.

This blue/red thing has got to go. It plays off the deep-seated human need to separate others into "in"-groups and "out"-groups.

The far right tries to cram its vision down everyone's throat; the far left dreams of the day when it's their (our?) turn to do the same thing. Nothing changes except the coarseness of public discussion, and that only changes for the worse.

Hatred is the ultimate blindfold. The more partisan an ideologue becomes, the less he/she can see how corrosive political hatred is to civilized life. The same can be said for religious hatred - and for the same reason. The same can be said for race hatred - and for the same reason. The same can be said for class hatred - and for the same reason. The same can be said for (fill in the blank). It's all rooted in the same unfortunate psychology left over from the time when humans banded together in competing tribes on the veldt. Find the in-group, and pledge them blind loyalty and a free pass for any mistakes; find the out-group, and hate them viscerally until you can justify any atrocious behavior against them.

I'll say it again. This blue/red thing has got to go. We're progressives - it's time to progress to a less hate-filled way of living. Beyond a certain point, ideology becomes nothing more than a license for barbaric behavior.

"If you would lift me up, you must stand on higher ground."
- Emerson


My opinions, nothing more, nothing less.

so its got that going for it. Easier to change ourselves than to change others.

On the other hand, hating anothers actions is different than hating the person. Hating an unjust system is different from hating the people in the system. Is hating injustice wrong?

Perhaps we should take another look at "hate the sin, love the sinner".

As in the "war on guns." If Democrats were to drop it and focus their gun-control initiatives on regulating the gun industry and combatting "straw purchases" and other abuses, their poll numbers would jump by 15% overnight.

he had not been viewed as anti-gun.

Then Kerry sponsored a bill that would have banned most semi automatic shotguns used for hunting. That in spite of the fact that the 2004 Dem Party Platform said "We will protect Americans' Second Amendment right to own firearms, and we will keep guns out of the hands of criminals and terrorists by fighting gun crime, reauthorizing the assault weapons ban, and closing the gun show loophole, as President Bush proposed and failed to do." See http://www.democrats.org/pdfs/2004platform.pdf

and that is what the Democratic Party should be focusing on to the near-exclusion of everything else: therefore a core-platform demanding resurrection of the New Deal exactly as proposed earlier today by Yollam:

--A return to the progressive income tax of the 1960s (remember, real prosperity that wasn't based on massive debt?)
--Restoration of corporate & capital gains taxes
--More funds to the states contingent on their reduction of regressive sales taxes
--Single-payer, NON-PROFIT National health care
--National Preschool & Daycare, in recognition of the FACT that almost in all cases, both parents must work to support a family.
--A new minimum wage that reflects regional cost of living variations and is pegged to the CPI and is at least sufficient to rent a basic apartment and buy food.
--New laws on offshoring/outsourcing that require that ANY US company that offshore production MUST comply with UNITED STATES minimum wage, worker safety and environmental laws as well as those in the foreign country.
--Some measures of protectionism, since our "competitors" are using their cheap labor and monetary policies to compete unfairly.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1142919

To which I would add five more New Deal proposals of my own:

--Revitalization of the labor movement by total restoration of the pro-union safeguards granted by FDR but repealed by the Taft-Hartley Act, which was rammed down America's throat over President Truman's veto by the red-baiting Republican 80th Congress; "revitalization" of necessity to include recognition that illegal immigration is THE favorite capitalist tactic for increasing profits by breaking unions and otherwise forcing down wages; recognition too that the only cure is securing the borders and ruthlessly prosecuting the capitalists who invite or encourage illegal immigration;

--A crash program to build the desperately needed local public rail transport systems, preferably financed with excess-profits taxes levied on capitalists -- especially Big Oil and Big Automotive -- who since the end of World War II have increasingly shirked paying their fair share of the costs of keeping America mobile;

--A massive public works program to put America back to work and repair the collapsing American railroad, highway, public building and public utility infrastructure;

--Replacement of the viciously discriminatory, only-wealth-determines-your-worthiness-for-college U.S. educational industry with a national system in which admission and placement is determined solely by talent and for which (as long as one qualifies academically) tuition is absolutely free from freshman year through the doctorate level. (Adoption of this sort of system, in use nearly everywhere in industrial world save the U.S.A., would be the greatest step ever taken to truly end forever gender, race and economic discrimination in the U.S.)

--Restoration of the socioeconomic safety net, savaged to ruin by Republicans and Democrats alike, and expansion of the safety net so that chronically impoverished people -- the disabled, the elderly and those otherwise afflicted by poverty -- receive stipends, adequate opportunities for self-improvement and services comparable to the living-wage guaranteed-income proposed by Yollam above.

(To make my position as clear as possible, let me add that the war and the cultural clashes are not real issues; they are in fact red herrings or smokescreen issues to distract us from the One Real Issue: class struggle, and the capitalist savagery that spawns not only the class struggle itself, but especially the war, the methodical and associated extermination-by-war-and-increasing-subjugation-by-poverty of the entire U.S. working class, and the raging cultural conflicts that conceal the subjugation -- all tactics by which capitalism attempts to ensure its ever-more-bloody-handed rule. Deal with class-struggle and the other issues will resolve themselves.)

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