Hacker News Reader

Comment by brenden2 | Hacker News Reader

Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin. They both represent the elite class, and do not care about these issues. They've had decades to do something about it, and instead gave themselves raises and made it harder for anyone to change anything.

Edit: It's funny because I actually applied to YC to build a company that would try and fix this. Naturally they didn't even offer to interview me. YC doesn't care about fixing a system that helped get them where they are, either.

View on HN

This used to be the case, but recently things have changed and in the wrong way. Rather than one party getting better, over the past 15 years Republicans have gotten far worse on pretty much every metric I care about.

I'd love to go back to when I felt they were just modestly different.

One party is doing everything in its power to undermine democratic institutions and erect barriers to participating in democracy. The two parties are not the same because only one party is doing that.

And parties change, and are made up of individuals. Go watch some of last years Democratic presidential debates to see where things are now, not 4-12 years ago.

What people say in debates is irrelevant. The only thing that matters are their actions. People keep falling into the trap of listening to the speeches, but ignoring the actual policies, policy implementation details, and the whole bureaucratic side of things. People are hyper focused on the TV version of reality, and completely ignore the day to day humdrum action.

I think part of the problem today is the TV-ification of politics. For example, Trump is obsessed with "ratings" and Twitter likes, rather than actually doing anything meaningful. What's incredibly bizarre is how many other politicians have started copying him by focusing on grandstanding, Twitter likes, and getting more news airtime, rather than actually getting work done.

Democrats have had minimal power at the federal level since 2014, which is around when the party started seriously drifting leftward. Look at the state and local level. Cities have gotten rid of bail, states legalize marijuana, protections for trans people, hugely increased minimum wages, widespread criminal justice reform, tons of environmental laws, etc, etc. Not all Democrats are bold lefties these days, but some are, and they are actually doing shit.

> What's incredibly bizarre is how many other politicians have started copying

It has always been this way. Professional politicians are just better by nature at hiding unseemly attention grabs. Which is most definitely not something that fits with Trumps personality type.

The "both sides are the same" argument is a complete nonsensical distraction and wears really thin when faced with reality.

Sure, there are pretty significant differences in the day-to-day conduct between the two parties, but it is true that both parties are beholden to major corporate interests and are decreasingly supporting positions held by the public at large.

The centrist wing of the Democratic Party refuses to seriously consider universal healthcare as a platform while we all watch the current healthcare system fall further and further into dysfunction via private bureaucracy.

Numerous progressive policies have wide support across the political spectrum, but aren’t being seriously considered by either major party. And that is something that both parties are very guilty of.

The Democrats are the spineless party. They have no courage to take a position. It’s all wishy-washy trying not to offend anybody (especially not their donors).

They have plenty of positions though.

The republican parties position seems to be "whatever the opposite of the democratic position is". Nothing can be clearer than that point especially contrasting their conduct during the Obama administration vs the current administration.

I also wouldn't consider staunch opposition to LGBT rights as a spine worth having.

This is exactly right. At the end of the day they only answer to the people who write the biggest cheques and pay for the fanciest dinners and vacations they get to enjoy.

Absolutely. Want to see a great breakdown? https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/2kaubu/just_a_remi...

This is great, thanks for sharing.

I would like to point out that it's still cherry picking, and ignores the cases where Democrats voted against sensible legislation. They supported the Patriot Act for example, and recently supported bailouts for large companies that didn't need free money from the government but still got it, all while keeping it difficult for people to access unemployment benefits.

Actually what you're doing here is closer to cherry-picking, since you've found a handful of examples compared to the dozens in the link.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com