Parties and Principles: The Former Don’t Care About the Latter
We generally look as the Democratic and Republican parties as entities with their own separate principles that differentiate them. This is commonly seen in their opposition to each other on different policy issues. There’s also an assumption that if somebody is a Democrat, that person is considered liberal, and Republicans are considered conservative. One can just look at this election cycle to find out that neither of those things are true.
The Democratic Party
One of the big stories on the Democratic side of the primary process has been about the legitimacy of this election. From Arizona to New York, there have been problems of a lack of polling places and voter purges. There also has been discussion on how democratic closed primaries and caucuses are. Closed primaries only allow voters registered as Democrats to vote, while caucuses are practically all day affairs so only the most passionate voters participate.
New York specifically caused a large uproar, as the deadline to change your party was in October, which is a closed primary. Considering a large segment of Sanders voters are independents, and that many young voters are generally independents as well, and that almost all voters don’t start paying attention to the election until January, this basically is meant to lock anyone who hasn’t been a Democrat out of voting in the primary. This makes it difficult for insurgent candidates to combat the establishment. It’s voter suppression, plain and simple.
However, a series of liberal pundits and Democratic related figures all said that this wasn’t voter suppression. That the ‘real’ suppression was Voter ID passed by Republicans was suppression, because they admitted to targeting voters that vote Democrat in general elections. Voting in primaries isn’t the same thing apparently, even though we live in a two party duopoly and that the little choice we get is a presidential primary, it’s considered a “private process.” Although these elections are funded by the states, so even that hardly holds up.
Simply put, they’re all willing to justify making it exceptionally difficult for independents to vote in the Democratic primary because it benefits their power base. While Democrats have traditionally been considered making voting easier and more accessible, they really just care about their people winning.
This is the same for campaign finance. Hillary Clinton’s campaign has gone at length to stretch every campaign finance rule possible. She’s got an array of Super PACs, and while they’re not supposed to coordinate with the campaign, we all know that this isn’t even enforced and the Correct the Record Super PAC has all but admitted to openly coordinating with the campaign. Her use of the Hillary Victory Fund is nothing more than legal money laundering.
In addition, the taking of corporate and Wall Street money, but saying Citizen’s United needs to be overturned presents another issue. The whole argument around money in politics is that it corrupts, but they all pretend that Clinton is the one unique exception. It completely damages the movement towards getting money out of politics, but because the party is more concerned with winning and not criticizing their own team, they put on the blinders as if they don’t see the very clear issue.
The Republican Party
The Republican Party has proven to be much less about ideology and much more into tribalism. That no matter what happens, everyone will wrap their arms around each other and oppose the enemy. The past eight years have been evident as no matter how much Obama or Democrats would try and move to the right to get Republican votes, they would not budge.
No one was really willing to admit or acknowledge this during much of Obama’s presidency. It’s impossible to deny now with the evident of Trump. A man who changes his mind and positions with the flow of the wind and largely obtained his position through nationalist, white supremacist language and signaling should be denied by anyone. Especially those would consider themselves conservative or in favor of small government. Trump doesn’t align with the values of either party.
Almost every Republican that is currently in office has fallen in line. Even those that were completely humiliated by Trump on the national stage have come out in support of him like Marco Rubio. They called him a con man, not a conservative, they said they wouldn’t trust him with the nuclear codes and more. Rick Perry called Trump a cancer and then started to lobby the campaign to be his VP, which Trump made fun of him for! This whole party is completely craven. And in doing all of this the Republican Party becomes inextricably tied to Donald Trump.
Donald Trump’s rise in itself proves that conservatism doesn’t matter among the Republican base. They didn’t care about his contradictory statements, or how some of his statements aren’t conservative at all. They just want someone who is on their side. Jeb Bush’s perceived moderate approach was rejected, Rand Paul’s more libertarian focus was rejected, and Ted Cruz’s fire and brimstone far right conservatism was rejected. All they want is someone who has their back, who’s on their team.
Two Teams
In reality, we do not have two ideological camps, but two different teams engaging in the best tactics to win the zero sum game that is politics. They’re certainly not equals, and to equate the two in the same way is lazy and wrong. What is important is that we abandon the pretense that either of these parties hold particularly strong beliefs. The Democratic Party cares about voter fraud so long as it affects the people who vote for them. The Republican Party sticks by their word the same way the wind blows in only one direction.
Between Democrats that seem to be willing to take any position to defend Hillary Clinton, even if it goes against the values or principles the party is supposed to uphold, and the craven Republicans who will decry Donald Trump as the worst thing that could happen to America, and then supporting him right after, it’s clear that only thing they believe in is winning at all costs. There’s a reason that a growing number of Americans are rejecting party labels. While they may still vote a party line because of their beliefs, they don’t want a part of corrupt and craven politicians that try to be leaders.
