See below for excellent analysis by former VA Del. Mark Levine (D-Alexandria) on “the differences between Democrats and Republicans.” I’d add a few more, such as “Democrats believe in science and reason” while “Republicans reject science and reason,” but overall, former Del. Levine nails it.
Thinking about the differences between Democrats and Republicans:
1a. Democrats think Canada is an ally and can be trusted. We don’t support a war of annexation or even a trade war with Canada. But we do support sanctions on Russia. Democrats think Russia is an enemy and cannot be trusted. We don’t support the Russian annexation of Ukraine or any other country in Europe.
1b. Republicans think Canada is an enemy of the United States and cannot be trusted. Republicans support making a trade war with Canada and even a physical war to annex what they call the 51st State. Conversely, Republicans think Russia is a friend and can be trusted. They don’t support sanctions on Russia. Republicans support Russian annexation of (at least) Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltic States, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Eastern Germany (and perhaps all of Europe) and are willing to disband NATO to allow Russian and Chinese hegemony over (at least) Europe and Asia and Africa.
2a. Democrats don’t believe in kings. They believe even Presidents should have to obey the law.
2b. Republicans believe Trump is perfect in every way. He is the Messiah. He is the King. Everything he says is always true. Trump must be worshipped like a god and never questioned. Everyone should give all their income to Trump, which they can readily do through meme coins, purchase of Truth Social, not to mention Bibles, tennis shoes, etc.
3a. Democrats love democracy, checks and balances, voting, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press.
3b. Republicans hate democracy, despise voting (and want to make it as difficult as possible); detest freedom of speech (and want to shoot peaceful American protesters the way Russian and China do); loathe freedom of religion (and want to forcefully teach their particular brand of “Trump Christianity” with Trump Bibles in public schools); and most importantly want all press outlets controlled by King Donald with no dissent allowed or tolerated.
4a. Democrats believe that those who take bribes should be put in jail. We believe that those who have committed fraud in the hundreds of millions of dollars, sexual assaults, or other serious felonies should be imprisoned.
4b. Republicans think everyone should be forced to bribe all Republican officeholders and most of all Trump and Musk. They praise the tens of millions of dollars Trump has extorted from media companies who pay him off so as not to lose the freedom of the press they once had. Republicans have a word for bribes: “tips.”
5a. Democrats believe the Federal Government should be effective, efficient, and should serve the American People.
5b. Republicans believe the Federal Government should fire its best workers; make them do time-consuming meaningless tasks; abandon their jobs to do showy public-relations work; give up all their classified secrets to the Russians; be replaced by more expensive, unknowledgeable, and uneducated conspiracy-focused ideologues; and should do their best to make billionaires richer and Trump even richer by robbing our tax dollars and by making bogus investigations into anyone who disagrees with King Donald I.
6a. Democrats think high inflation is a bad thing. We don’t think we should raise prices 20% or 25%. We recognize that President Biden worked hard to lower inflation to close to 2%.
6b. Republicans love massive inflation. They want to increase prices 25%, 50%, or even 100% just so that King Donald gets his way. They are proud that inflation is 4% but want it to go higher. If it reaches hyperinflation, they will finally achieve their tariff goals.
7a. Democrats oppose recession and love economic growth. We are proud that President Biden gave us an unemployment level so low that we have not seen lower since the 1950’s. We think the 3% increase in GDP in 2024 has been excellent. We also are proud that President Biden lifted more children out of poverty than any President since Lyndon Johnson.
7b. Republicans hate economic growth. They are cheering the projected drop in GDP from +3% to -3% predicted by the Federal Reserve (the worst positive to negative drop in post-war America). They are hoping for skyrocketing unemployment to come too in the Trump recession (that they will somehow blame on Biden). They know businesses hate uncertainty and massive numbers of public and private employees will be laid off. But as long as a few billionaires make more money, they are more than willing to sacrifice 99% of Americans. They want to shift more of the tax burden from the three richest billionaires in the world (all Americans: Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos) that own more wealth than the bottom 300 million Americans so that the 300 million Americans pay more of their hard-earned income to these top three richest people in the world.
8a. Democrats believe Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are good programs relied on by the vast majority of Americans as security for old age and ill health.
8b. Republicans want to see massive cuts in all these programs, in the hopes we go back to the times of the Great Depression before any of these programs existed. They specifically praise the time of the “robber-barons” when a few rich billionaires controlled virtually aspect of American society while most workers endured almost slave-like conditions in factories.
I could go on and on. These are just a very few examples of the clear differences between American’s only two viable political parties.
You may protest and say, “I’m a Republican and I don’t believe any or most of that.”
All I can say to you is maybe you were a Republican and it’s true that’s not what the Republican Party used to believe. (Ronald Reagan, for example, is clearly rolling in his grave on the first point I mentioned.). But all elected Republicans clearly believe these eight points now. If they didn’t, you would find elected Republicans pushing back on any one of these Trumpian notions. Can you name any that have fought back against all 8 of these? Can you find one Republican that has pushed back hard on any of them?
If you find you were a Republican but the current Republican Party no longer represents your values, then please join us. We welcome you into the Democratic Party. We may not agree on everything. But on these 8 basic principles, Democrats entirely agree.
Feel free to share. Ask your former Republican friends which vision (a or b) best describes their own views.
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