{"id":11585,"date":"2013-06-11T09:01:10","date_gmt":"2013-06-11T09:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nonesoblind.org\/blog\/?p=11585"},"modified":"2014-10-08T04:29:43","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T04:29:43","slug":"the-momentous-difference-between-todays-democratic-and-republican-parties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/the-momentous-difference-between-todays-democratic-and-republican-parties\/","title":{"rendered":"The Momentous Difference between Today’s Democratic and Republican Parties"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a better articulation of what I wrote improvisationally over the weekend. This was published on the Blue Virginia website.<\/em><\/p>\n

On the eve of tomorrow\u2019s primary election, it is fitting to remind ourselves how important that Democrats defeat Republicans in today\u2019s America, and therefore how important it is to have good, strong Democratic candidates engaged in the contest.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I had occasion to articulate how important is the difference between Democrats and Republicans today. It was in exchange with a reader on the generally lefty website, www.OpEdNews.com . <\/p>\n

This reader took the position, which I\u2019ve been encountering for years on that website, that there\u2019s no real battle between Democrats and Republicans, that the two parties are both merely arms of the money power, that there\u2019s not a dime\u2019s worth of difference between the parties, and so people in the know shouldn\u2019t worry about the outcome in the contests between the two.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why that lefty dismissal is a fundamental misunderstanding of what\u2019s happening in our politics.<\/p>\n

1)\tIt is in the political arena that it gets decided whose hand will be on the helm of America, making the decisions about what kind of society we will become.<\/p>\n

2)\tWe have two major parties, and our destiny will be in the hands of one of those parties. There are no other players in contention. If the American people are going to have ANY champion fighting for them, it will be one or the other of the two parties.<\/p>\n

3)\tAlthough it\u2019s true that both parties are too much under the influence of big money, that plutocratic influence is clearly less dominant in the Democratic Party than in the Republican. It is impossible to name a single issue in contention between the parties in which there is a conflict between the interests of big money and the interests of either the average person or the public good where the Republicans side against big money.<\/p>\n

4)\tIn fact, the Republican Party has gone so terribly wrong in our times that on virtually every issue on which there are battle lines drawn, it can be said that the Republicans are pushing toward greater Brokenness in America, and the direction the Democrats are pushing toward greater Wholeness.<\/p>\n

On that last point, just consider which party <\/p>\n

\u2022\tShows more respect for the planet.
\n\u2022\tIs more likely to make truthful statements.
\n\u2022\tIs more likely to put the greater good ahead of self-serving impulses and partisan interests.
\n\u2022\tIs more compassionate toward our fellow human beings in difficult straits.
\n\u2022\tIs more likely to seek cooperation rather than conflict.
\n\u2022\tIs more likely to walk their talk.
\n\u2022\tIs more likely to seek to reconcile
\ngroups of Americans, rather than turn one group against another.<\/p>\n

We might wish that the Democrats had shown themselves more game to press the battle that absolutely needs to be won. But there are real battles going on, and the Democratic Party is the only available force through which our best values (justice, truth, love) might prevail to shape our destiny as a nation.<\/p>\n

We might wish the battle lines were drawn at better points on the spectrums, but the directions in which the sides are pushing tell us everything we need to know about what side needs to win. <\/p>\n

Whatever their imperfections, the Democrats are our champions. It\u2019s up to us to field our best team, and to cheer them to press the battle and win it.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a better articulation of what I wrote improvisationally over the weekend. This was published on the Blue Virginia website. On the eve of tomorrow\u2019s primary election, it is fitting to remind ourselves how important that Democrats defeat Republicans in today\u2019s America, and therefore how important it is to have good, strong Democratic candidates engaged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14091,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11585\/revisions\/14091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}