The gulf between the Democrats and Republicans is VAST.

[pnwmom]

To all who would argue that the Dems and the Rethugs are basically the same, think again.

Here's Paul Krugman:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/opinion/krugman-failure-is-good.html?hp

Why was the supercommittee doomed to fail? Mainly because the gulf between our two major political parties is so wide. Republicans and Democrats don’t just have different priorities; they live in different intellectual and moral universes.

In Democrat-world, up is up and down is down. Raising taxes increases revenue, and cutting spending while the economy is still depressed reduces employment. But in Republican-world, down is up. The way to increase revenue is to cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and slashing government spending is a job-creation strategy. Try getting a leading Republican to admit that the Bush tax cuts increased the deficit or that sharp cuts in government spending (except on the military) would hurt the economic recovery.

Moreover, the parties have sharply different views of what constitutes economic justice.

Democrats see social insurance programs, from Social Security to food stamps, as serving the moral imperative of providing basic security to our fellow citizens and helping those in need.

Republicans have a totally different view. They may soft-pedal that view in public — in last year’s elections, they even managed to pose as defenders of Medicare — but, in private, they view the welfare state as immoral, a matter of forcing citizens at gunpoint to hand their money over to other people. . . .

[MADem]

1. Damn right! nt

[liberal N proud]

2. There are galaxies between the two parties.

But the Democrats keep trying to get there. :nuke:

[jaxx]

3. Good for Krugman.

It's time to cut the myths.

[woo me with science]

4. They have been precisely far apart enough to make Democrats look palatable to many,

even while they support exploitative corporate policies.

How many times have we heard the "lesser of two evils" speech around here? And look where we are. Look at the abominations we have witnessed over the past three years.

It is very easy to move rightward when someone else is further right. And playing the two sides against each other allows one to forge faux "compromises" that neither side would have accepted if they had been presented honestly at the outset....like mandating every single American to purchase an outrageously expensive corporate product.

That is part of the beauty of purchasing both parties.

[bluethruandthru]

5. The parties are definitely too far apart to ever, in my opinion, be able to compromise again.

I hate the fact that our entire political process seems doomed to continue on the path that we've been on for the last 30 years. The public is increasingly brainwashed by the right wing media to the point that probably 70 percent of Americans would probably still label the media as "liberal" because they've heard it repeated as gospel for so many years. I really don't see that anything short of a total meltdown of the country will change things.
Part of me hopes that the republicans take over everything..house, senate and white house and then turn the country into exactly what they want. Maybe then the idiotic half of the population will FINALLY realize the truth.
Of course...I really don't want to be around for that nightmare.

[vcc]

6. there are 2 big inter-related things that make it very hard on Dems...

1. The Repugs demand extremely destructive things and don't budge. That's their negotiation style: not doing it. It's like a hostage situation, basically.

2. They form gangs, which makes it even more like warfare. Since what they're all about is so, well, repugnant to any American who isn't stinkingly rich and/or sociopathic, they are CONSTANTLY having to trick people into buying it. So one of the main ways they do this is by splitting themselves apart into new groups and then reassembling themselves and/or bringing already existing splinter groups into their fold based on some (usually hate-based and/or greed-based) common bond. It's a constant process of split off, then reassemble, split off, then reassemble, each time trying to swell the base. And all the while gaining more money and power.

So what this ends up being is the Dems having to give into increasingly outrageous demands by an increasingly unreasonable and bigger and bigger group. A few of them get sucked over to the dark side. But the rest are fighting the big hydra monster.