Democratic Party

Official logo of the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party is one of the two major political parties in the United States of America. It is generally seen as being politically between center and left of center, while the rival Republican Party is positioned to the right of center (see political spectrum theory). Members and supporters of the Democratic Party are known as Democrats.

The Democrats currently control the 110th United States Congress together with the majority of State governorships and legislatures. According to a Pew Research Center poll, 50 percent of Americans identify themselves with the Democratic Party as opposed to 35 percent for the Republican Party. according to the Democratic National Committee's website is "considered — along with Jefferson — one of the founding fathers of the Democratic Party." Annual Jefferson-Jackson Day celebrations nationwide by local chapters of the Democratic Party commemorate the two founders of the Democratic Party. The Indian Removal Act, enforced through a series of dishonest dealings with native people such as the Treaty of Dancing Rabitt Creek and the Treaty of New Echota, resulted in the wholesale deportation of Native Americans from the Southeastern states to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma). <http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/>

The Jacksonian period also saw the expansion of the voting franchise as most states did away with, or decreased property requirements for voting. The beneficiaries of the expansion of the franchise however, were nearly all white males. Annual Jefferson-Jackson Day celebrations nationwide by local chapters of the Democratic Party commemorate the two founders of the Democratic Party.

Democrat Franklin Roosevelt, who served as President from 1933 to 1945, led the United States during the Great Depression and throughout most of the Second World War. Under his successor, Harry Truman the United States emerged a victor from World War II and articulated the Doctrine of Containment which committed the U.S. to stop the spread of global Communism. Truman ordered the Berlin airlift in 1948 and sent U.S. troops to Korea in 1950.

Policies and criticism

In June 2005, while Democrats held a mock impeachment inquiry in President's Bush's foreign policy, anti-Semitic materials were distributed at the Democratic Party National headquarters. The literature claimed that an Israeli company had warning of the September 11, 2001 attacks, and an "insider trading scam" on Wall Street had occurred simultaneously.

The views of individual Democrats sometimes diverge from the party's official stance as expressed in its national platform, however unlike the Republican party, the Democratic National Committee has not allowed dissenting opinions to share the podium on matters such as abortion at National Conventions.

R. Emmetrt Tyrell has been highly critical of the currect Democratic leadership, stating, "Can anything embarrass Speaker Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership? Frankly I doubt it. They are all neatly shut off from the world in their fantasy of moral and intellectual superiority."

Economic policy

In the field of economic policy, Democrats favor higher progressive taxes on the wealthy, higher government spending (as per the Keynesian economic model in times of recession) and increasing the minimum wage.'^{[Citation Needed]}

The Democratic Party has historically had ties to organized labor. The National Education Association, the largest union of public school teachers, is a backbone of the party, supplying the largest number of delegates to its national conventions.^{[Citation Needed]}

Foreign and military policy

According to its platform, the Democratic Party has the objective of strengthening America. Democratic national leadership has been accused of being ambivalent about terrorism and insufficiently patriotic. . However, Democrats respond that the Bush Doctrine is actually leading to more terrorism, while the Democratic position of keeping the key values instilled into the American Constitution by the founding fathers is the proper course of action. Perhaps by eliminating what it means to be American (destroying the constitutional protections of individual rights that the founding fathers fought for) the Bush Administration is doing more harm to America than any terrorist ever could.^{[Citation Needed]}

Education

An organization affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council called the Progressive Policy Institute which claims a long standing opposition to school vouchers reported Jonathan Alter of Newsweek saying,

"Can wealthy white liberals - many of whom send their kids to private school - really say to poor parents: 'We can have choices, but you must not?'...This is a glaring hypocrisy sitting at the heart of the liberal opposition to targeted vouchers… Right now, Democrats are in a highly compromised position on education."

Democrats are in favor of ensuring that all schools have funding in order for every child, even those from families that cannot afford private school (vouchers do not cover the entire cost) deserve a basic education.^{[Citation Needed]}

Environment vs Labor

Two other important coalition groups also find themselves in direct conflict with each other within the Democratic party coalition--Environmentalists and Labor Unions.^{[Citation Needed]} While environmentalists support efforts like clean air and alternative fuels, for example, this creates tension with the workers of American automobile manufactures whose jobs are threatened by environmental policies such as increasing regulations and high costs. Such policies can lead to cutbacks and layoffs. Balancing these issues is difficult because some sacrifices of interests must be made by both sides. However, an upside to investing into green friendly industries is the creation of new jobs and income, ultimately helping the economy.

Healthcare

The Democrat fondness for heavy government intervention into the marketplace^{[Citation Needed]} and social engineering^{[Citation Needed]} means that a significant proportion of their base and of their candidates for the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election ideologically favor introducing a system of socialized healthcare^{[Citation Needed]}; regardless of the crippling tax burden this would require to sustain itself^{[Citation Needed]} and the low standard of care achieved by socialized health programs in other countries compared to the United States.^{[Citation Needed]} Despite these disadvantages, Democrats generally regard universal healthcare to be a priority because of the appeal to nearly 50 million voters without any kind of health insurance. Among the leading proponents for this idea include Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John Edwards; the latter formerly being the running mate to Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential Election.

Actually, the World Health Organization has rated the world's best healthcare systems by nation. America spends a higher portion of its GDP than any other nation, yet is only 37th world-wide, far worse than most socialized health programs^{[Citation Needed]}. Hence, America can follow the lead of the rest of the industrialized world (and perhaps increase its horrible child mortality rate) and change the relationship between doctor and patient as one designed to get the most money out of one another.^{[Citation Needed]}

Homosexual Agenda

Democrat lawmakers and opinion-formers consistently favor measures such as the establishment of same-sex civil unions, gay marriage and gay adoption of heterosexual children.

Other Policies

Democrats frequently support the minimum wage, workplace protections, the right of women to choose to have an abortion, gun control, gay marriage, and the separation of church and state.

Religion

In the United States, there is some correlation between religious and political affiliation, though people of all faiths and denominations can be found among the supporters of each of the main parties.

Both historically and today, Catholic voters have had a tendency to identify with the Democratic Party^{[Citation Needed]}, and a number of Democratic office-holders, such as Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, are Catholics. However, several general ideals of the Democratic Party's platform - most notably, the party's overall support for the legality of abortion - are contrary to the position of the Catholic Church.^{[Citation Needed]} While the Republican stance of supporting the death penalty and aggressive foreign policy are also contrary to the position of the Catholic Church.^{[Citation Needed]}

With regard to Protestant Christians, members of Evangelical churches in particular are associated with the Republican Party. One unusual feature of the Democratic Party, however, is that it draws substantial support both from committed African-American Protestant Christians and from secular and atheist white voters.^{[Citation Needed]} The strong opposition to homosexuality found among many Black Protestant Christians (and, indeed, among orthodox Catholics) contrasts strikingly with the support frequently shown by other Democrats for the homosexual agenda.^{[Citation Needed]}. Perhaps there are other subjects more important than gay marriage?

Democrats also generally believe that religion should be separate from public life, and as such are typically supported by the ACLU, which is designed to uphold the basic principles created by the founding fathers. For example, in 1999 the Congress took up a bill to protect the display of the Ten Commandments. In the House of Representatives, over 3/4ths of the Democratic party members voted to remove the display, claiming that it unconstitutionally supported one religion over another. . The measure did not pass the Legislature, and as a result when Justice Roy Moore posted a Ten Commandments display in his courthouse, the ACLU was able to have the display removed.

See also

• Phonemarks

External links

• The Real Democrat Story, Open the File on the Freshmen Democrats.