You see no difference between antebellum Virginia and Mississippi, nor between Bourbons and Bryanites, nor between Kennedy and McGovern.
Nor do you see a difference between Abolition and Emancipation, T.R. and Wm. Howard Taft, Harding and Hoover, Rockefeller and Goldwater, Romney and Trump.
Clearly parties have their wings. One could say Romney and Trump are to one side of the median voter and Kennedy and McGovern to the other side. But, this begs the question as to what set of issues defines the political spectrum.
Through Bryan, Democrats tended to hard money. Then they flipped to the other side of the Republicans, and advocated silver and/or paper money.
Through the 1920s, Democrats advocated segregation in the south. Following WWII, they flipped to the other side of the Republicans, and favored racial preferences favoring minorities.
Also through the 1920s, Democrats favored states’ rights. Following WWII, they flipped to the other side of the Republicans and favored national legislation.
Look at the evolution of politics in terms of class and region.
The Jeffersonian Republicans were famously in favor of freeholders, and the Hamiltonian Federalists in favor of commerce. The Jeffersonians were agrarian and the Hamiltonians urban.
Today’s Republicans are the middle class, and are strongest in the rural areas and exburbs of the country. The Democrats depend on the votes of government workers, those who are dependent on government welfare programs, and those seeking preferences in hiring, etc., based on skin color, gender, and other demographic characteristics. Their strength is specifically in the urban and inner suburbs of the country.
In the Wizard of Oz the revolution within the Democratic Party was characterized by a cyclone. The cyclone killed the wicked witch of the east (Grover Cleveland of New York), but the American people (represented by Dorothy), including factory workers (the tin man), farmers (the scarecrow), and Wm. Jennings Bryan (the cowardly lion), along with the tiny Prohibitionist Party (Toto), still had to kill the wicked witch of the west (Wm. McKinley of Ohio).
The true path would be to walk along the yellow brick road (gold) with the silver slippers (sorry, MGM changed them to ruby slippers because ruby showed better in technicolor), to go to the Emerald City (Washington, where money - green - rules). There they would meet the wizard, who was only a figurehead, since Mark Hanna called the shots within the Republican Party.
Who are the Republicans in this story? Why, we are the Munchkins. The hard-working decent members of the middle class, who aren’t very smart and who are duped by the rich.
Today, the Democrats have us surrounded. They are the elite and the rich, who tax us in order to bribe those they induce into dependency to vote for them. The Democrats are no longer the party of private-sector workers and farmers. Those people have dwindled into insignificance or have come over to our side.
Wake up, Dorothy, and discover that there’s no place like home.
Fascinating.
I constantly point out this distinction. I constantly tell people to look at this as a contest between the Jeffersonians and the Hamiltonians.
Today, the Democrats have us surrounded. They are the elite and the rich, who tax us in order to bribe those they induce into dependency to vote for them. The Democrats are no longer the party of private-sector workers and farmers. Those people have dwindled into insignificance or have come over to our side.
Exactly right, and as a class, they are the same people who warred upon the South in 1861, and for the same reason. Money and Power.