Top 10 ways the two US parties are different.

by anubis2814

So many people love to claim that both parties are exactly the same. Prior to Trump, on the foreign stage, this argument could be made if you discarded all nuance.  However on the domestic stage, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Here are 10 important ways that the two parties are very different.

10. Student loan industry
    While Bernie wanted free 4 year degrees for all, Hillary wanted free 2 year degrees for all with progressive based funding for the next 2 year of colleges as well as better controls on the student loan industry.  In stark contrast, Betsy Devos under the Trump administration has repeatedly let predatory for-profit schools mislead and swindle students out of money they don’t have, trapping them in debt for years without a better job that was promised to pay for it.  During the Bush years the republicans jacked the interest rates of student loans up to 6%, while in contrast, the Obama administration reduced it to 4% and weakened the profit incentive. Elizabeth Warren wants to tie the rate to the Federal reserve interest rate, which was .75 when she announced it

9. Prison reform
   Trump appears willing to do some prison reform when it comes to reducing sentences.  However he and the republicans want to maintain and in some cases ramp up for-profit prisons.  These for-profit prisons have a higher use of solitary confinement which leads to increased mental disorders and therefore more recidivism, and have little to no training, rahab or education opportunities shown to reduce recidivism.  Being for-profit they actually have an incentive to increase recidivism. Prisoners get pennies on the dollar for menial work that won’t translate into real jobs outside prison or essentially, slave labor. They also charge families insane fees for phone calls with the prisoner for no real reason other than to make more money. The prisons also have a contract with states that require them to have a certain number of prisoners at any one time or pay extra.  So that pushes lawmakers to find reasons to imprison people. The democrats have been front and center on ending for-profit prisons and have done so in several states.

8: Bodily autonomy (abortion)
Plain and simple, democrats want the right for a woman to choose and have an abortion safely, unlike before roe vs wade where botched abortions were among the top 10 causes of death for women 15-25.  They also want women to have the healthcare she needs if she wants to have the child. Republicans want to remove her right to choose and be forced to carry the child to term, or die if she does it illegally because she’s scared or can’t afford another child as the majority of abortion seeker are already mother,  But republicans are against healthcare reform needed to reduce infant mortality to levels in europe, which would save 10-12 times the number of babies than the amount aborted yearly that the parents actually want to keep. They also spread the myth that most abortions are late term abortions, which are in the 3rd trimester and are only legal when some terrible disease is found in the child or the life of the mother is threatened which happens <1% of the time.   

7: Immigration

The democrats have for a decade now tried and tried again to reach across the aisle and work to fix our broken immigration and naturalization system which now can take the average immigrant 15 years to become a citizen, making the line to become a citizen a myth for many.  All we have really done is to militarize our border, which actually reduced legal immigrants from returning home once their visa expires because they didn’t know if they could come back and 65% of all undocumented immigrants are from Asia who came over as students and just stayed here.  

Literally the only policy for immigrations and citizenship republicans have is more security at the border costing more and more to the taxpayers, even when we actually already have a wall, or fence as it has to be see through as Trump has said before, at most of the border, forcing immigrants and refugees to just try more treacherous terrain which ends up killing more of them.  

6: Taxation of Wealthy vs Average Americans (tied into national debt & deficit)

People refer to the democrats as tax and spenders.  But republicans are borrow and spenders and have spiked the deficit worse than than democrats anytime they hold the white house since reagan mostly spent on military or giving rich people or large corporations more tax cuts.  Just a reminder that the deficit is how much over budget a government is for a year while the debt is a compilation of each deficit, plus interest. Obama actually dropped the deficit faster than ever since just after WWII which extended the recession once the tea party took over.  However Trump immediately turned around and spiked the deficit and is set to increase the debt by $1.5 T now over the next 10 years. Pretty much all of that money went to the very wealthy. Democrats on the other hand believe in a progressive tax where the rich who can afford it and made their money off of government infrastructure and the money spent to train their labor, should pay a larger share, and currently the taxes on the poor and middle class are way too high, They also believe in Keynesian economics where during growth period the government should use taxes to pay off national debt, but during a recession when labor, materials and interest rates are low, the government should spend a ton of infrastructure and save a lot of money and kickstart the economy by getting people spending.

5. Voting reform
   In 2010, the GOP implemented REDMAP which used computer GIS data to gerrymander to an extreme never before seen, where estimates that the house has 18 seats that had they been elected proportionally would have been for democrats.  In virginia alone in 2017, the vote for democrats was 55% but they still only got 49 of the house seats meaning they didn’t have control over the house. Democrats used to be the worst at gerrymandering but 2010 computer science made it worse than it had ever been.  Democrats are pushing to end gerrymandering nationwide, end the winner take all in the electoral college with the interstate compact to give proportional representation to the popular vote. They also want to get money out of politics and overturn citizens united. Sadly in all these cases if democrats don’t also gerrymander, target big money and use winner take all and republicans do, democrats would never win again.   They also want to make it easier to vote such as early voting, more polling places, making voting day a paid federal holiday, automatic voter registration and mail-in voting as opposed to republicans that are doing the opposite and fear mongering about supposed rash of voter fraud, cutting polling places and making draconian laws so people who have always voted now can’t. Democrats are also also more likely to experiment with alternative voting methods such as ranked choice voting or approval voting

4. Minimum wage and Union protection
   Most americans believe that the minimum wage is too low. Nearly every ballot initiative to raise it has won, and more people on minimum wage also have to supplement with food stamps when working 40 hours per week .  However most republicans claim that the minimum wage is too high and more jobs at lower pay would be created if the minimum wage went away. Never mind that people couldn’t afford to survive, but whatever. The last minimum wage hike was under Obama in his first 2 years.  Bernie wanted a $15 minimum wage hike while Hillary wanted a #12 wage hike because the rural regions couldn’t afford it which has some evidence. A cost of living by county based living wage would be best of all. Republicans also do everything they can to weaken unions and union membership has been declining  in direct correlation with stagnating wages which have been stuck since the late 70’s for the poor and middle class. Right to work laws and attacks on teachers and other union workers have been key strategies to ensure labor doesn’t have any negotiating power with their employees who hold all the power. Democrats have always been on the side of unions and are working to roll back right to work laws.

3. Social safety net
   As stated above, people working 40 hours a week on minimum wage are on welfare.  Thanks to changes in the 90’s one has to be fully employed, or at least on unemployment which many jobs these days don’t provide, to get welfare. All else on welfare are the elderly, children and the disabled.  Yet republicans love to bludgeon them as moochers, even though if you make $50K a year you will spend around $40 in taxes to pay for welfare, while paying $400 for tax cuts to massive corporations who pay almost no taxes.   Democrats want to raise the minimum wage so less people would need to be on welfare. Also after the Trump tax cut, and the deficit rose, GOP began blaming social security and medicare for the deficit, two things which are paid for by your paycheck and as Ronald Reagan said, have no impact on the deficit.. Democrats want to strengthen social security and medicare because they stabilize the economy during a recession, republicans want social security to be privatized so that old people lose everything when the market tanks.  

2. Environmental protection

Do we even need to discuss this one?   Republicans actively deny climate change, and continue to deregulate pollution laws which means companies make a ton of money off of externalities they dump on you like health problems and make you pay for them without seeing any of the benefits.  They hamstring alternative energy, fight against a much needed smart grid and kill science research for alternatives and climate science itself. We are facing planet death here and republicans would rather make nice with huge oil and coal companies and polluters making bank off of us than prevent this completely preventable disaster.  Nuff said.

1: Healthcare

Republicans fought and vilified the ACA or Obamacare as they vilified it it at every turn possible.  It ended the denying of pre-existing conditions and helped out people who couldn’t afford it. It gave a lot more customers to insurance companies in exchange for lower prices per person because of economies of scale.  The majority of Americans wanted and still want single payer which was backed by Bernie or a public option backed by Hillary, but republicans declared that to be evil socialism as health care costs continued to rise, destroying people’s lives and literally killing people.  Since then the GOP has done everything legally possible to kill or weaken the ACA and 20 states are suing to restore the denial of pre-existing conditions. These same state leaders are at the same time claiming that the Democrats are going to do this and claim that they are the real defenders of pre-existing conditions.  

 

And this is really what it comes down to.  Yes all politicians lie, cheat, have scandals and do dirty tricks and rely on hyperbole, but in the end the comparison is of no contest.  The difference is crystal clear. If after reading this, if you still think both parties are 100% the same, well I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.  If not, stop whining and get out there and vote!. Oh did I mention that the GOP is the only party with 3 actually Nazis on the ballot?