How Is The Democratic Party Different From The Republican Party
Democrats are generally considered liberal, while Republicans are seen as conservative. The Democratic Party typically supports a larger government role in economic issues, backing regulations and social welfare programs. The Republicans, however, typically want a smaller government that is less involved in the economy. This contrary view on the size of government is reflected in their positions on taxesDemocrats favour a progressive tax to finance governments expanded role, while Republicans support lower taxes for all. However, Republicans do support a large budget for the military, and they often aggressively pursue U.S. national security interests, even if that means acting unilaterally. Democrats, however, prefer multilateralism. On social issues, Democrats seek greater freedoms, while Republicans follow more traditional values, supporting government intervention in such matters. For example, Democrats generally back abortion rights, while Republicans dont. In terms of geography, Democrats typically dominate in large cities, while Republicans are especially popular in rural areas.
History Of The Democratic Party
The party can trace its roots all the way back to Thomas Jefferson when they were known as Jeffersons Republicans and they strongly opposed the Federalist Party and their nationalist views. The Democrats adopted the donkey as their symbol due to Andrew Jackson who was publicly nicknamed jackass because of his popular position of let the people rule. The Democratic National Committee was officially created in 1848. During the civil war a rift grew within the party between those who supported slavery and those who opposed it. This deep division led to the creation of a new Democratic party, the one we now know today.
Why Are Republicans Red And Democrats Blue
Today, citizens across the US are casting their ballots, hoping to tip the balance of their state to red or blue, but few stop to wonder from where the concepts of “red” and “blue” states stem. According to Smithsonian Magazine, red did not always denote the Republican party and blue wasn’t always symbolic of Democrats this now-common lexicon only dates back to the 2000 election.
In 1976, NBC debuted its first election map on the air, with bulbs that turned red for Carter-won states , and blue for Ford . This original color scheme was based on Great Britain’s political system, which used red to denote the more liberal party. However, other stations used different colors and designations for a variety of ideological and aesthetic reasons, which often differed from person to person.
“It was a more natural association.”
The color coding we’re familiar with today didn’t stick until the iconic election of 2000, when The New York Times and USA Today published their first full-color election maps. The Times spread used red for Republicans because “red begins with r, Republican begins with r,” said the senior graphics editor Archie Tse, “it was a more natural association.” The election, which didn’t end until mid-December, firmly established Democrats as the blue party and Republicans as the red denotations which will likely hold fast for some time to come.
Democratic Candidate Joe Biden
Reuters: Carlos Barria
The Democrats are the liberal political party and their candidate is Joe Biden, who has run for president twice before.
A former senator for Delaware who served six terms, Biden is best known as Barack Obama’s vice-president.
He held that role for eight years, and it has helped make him a major contender for many Democrat supporters.
Earlier this year, Biden chose California Senator Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential running mate.
The 77-year-old has built his campaign on the Obama legacy, and tackling the country’s staggering health care issues.
He is known for his down-to-earth personality and his ability to connect with working-class voters. He would be the oldest first-term president in history if elected.
According to 2017 Pew Research Centre data, a vast majority of the African American population supports the Democratic party, with 88 per cent voting for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential elections.
In Recent Election Cycles Independent Political Funders Like Way To Win Have Stopped Funneling Money Through Democratic Party Committees Instead Theyre Directly Funding Local And State
Since the GOP lost to Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election, the party has mainly sought to eke out wins by mobilizing its declining white and often Evangelical base through strategic racism, Warren said.
But in the 2020 elections, the Trump campaign effectively used misinformation tactics to peel off a few percentage points from voters of color, predominantly Black and Latinx men. For example, Trump repeatedly made claims that he had done more for Black communities than any president since Abraham Lincoln, and leaned on endorsements from prominent celebrities like rappers Lil Wayne and Ice Cube. Trump also appealed to key voting blocs of Cuban and Venezuelan Americans in the swing state of Florida through disinformation that painted centrist Biden as a socialist.
Trumps campaign also started running Spanish-language ads earlier than Bidens did, and was outspending the Democrats up until the final months of the election. These ads, tailored to specific Hispanic nationalities and bolstered bydisinformation on platforms frequented by Latinx voters, may have tipped the scales in some battleground states. The GOP may have also had a leg up because it continued door-to-door canvassing efforts throughout the election cycle, whereas the Democrats ordered campaigners to stop knocking to reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus.
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How Do We Use Mascots In Political Communication
The Republican Party featured elephant logos at their 2020 Republican National Convention:
GOD BLESS THE USA!
Donald J. Trump August 24, 2020
Democrats and Democratic candidates have often embraced the donkey as their unofficial mascot:
Happy 150th birthday to the Democratic donkey! Originally intended to be insulting, we embraced the comparison with such a tough, hardworking creature. From protecting union rights to fighting for affordable healthcare, I’m proud to stand with working-class Coloradans.#COPolitics
Chris King June 21, 2020
The animals began in political cartoons and still appear in many of them today. CNN featured both animals in animated political cartoon ads that depicted them as friends:
The Republican elephant and Democratic donkey are longtime friends in CNN’s artful new election coverage ads. https://t.co/vC5meK7Hr4
Adweek August 29, 2020
Some conservative Republicans criticize liberal Republicans as being RINOs and often have no sympathy for these left-leaning politicians. In recent years, some members of the Libertarian Party have unofficially embraced the porcupine as the unofficial animal mascot of the party.
Will these mascots eventually catch on like the donkey and the elephant? Its hard to tell! The stories of the donkey and the elephant certainly have their own surprising twists and turns, and would have been hard to predict.
What Does The Democratic Party Believe In
The Democratic Party is generally associated with more progressive policies. It supports social and economic equality, favouring greater government intervention in the economy but opposing government involvement in the private noneconomic affairs of citizens. Democrats advocate for the civil rights of minorities, and they support a safety net for individuals, backing various social welfare programs, including Medicaid and food stamps. To fund these programs and other initiatives, Democrats often endorse a progressive tax. In addition, Democrats notably support environmental protection programs, gun control, less-strict immigration laws, and worker rights.
Figure 10 Majorities Believe Housing Is A Big Problem Along Almost The Entire Coastal Region
NOTES: Question wording is How much of a problem is housing affordability in your part of California? Is it a big problem, somewhat of a problem, or not a problem? Shading represents the share of Californians who say it is a big problem. Estimates come from a multilevel regression and poststratification model as described in Technical Appendix A. Full model results can be found in Technical Appendix B.
The country has suffered a string of mass shootings in recent years, which has once again put gun control at the center of political debate. About two-thirds of Californians have supported stricter gun control laws over the past two years of PPIC Statewide Surveys. Figure 11 shows that this strong overall support masks an extremely sharp geographic divide. In the rural places in the far north and east of the state, support for stricter gun laws falls below 40 percent. In most of the remaining rural areas-along the north coast, the southern San Joaquin Valley, and the Mojave Desert, support falls short of a majority. But support is above 70 percent in most of the Bay Area and all of LA County, and it exceeds 80 percent in the three liberal enclaves of central LA, the East Bay, and San Francisco.
What Happened: Arizona Turned Blue In The 2020 Presidential Election But The Republicans Still Control The State
Reflecting broader democratic shifts, recent decades have seen big changes in politics in Arizona: moving from deep red Republican domination to a particular shade of purple over the last decade. Eldrid Herrington maps how these changes have played out in recent years, the 2020 general election, and what they might mean moving forward.
- Following the 2020 US General Election, our mini-series,What Happened? explores aspects of elections at the presidential, Senate, House of Representative and state levels, and also reflects on what the election results will mean for US politics moving forward. If you are interested in contributing, please contact Rob Ledger or Peter Finn .
At 2.14pm on the 6th of January 2021, as Congress conducted its ceremonial Electoral Vote count, Paul Gosar of Arizona was addressing the US House of Representatives, challenging the electoral votes in his own state, when he and his colleagues had to be rushed out of the chamber and taken to safety elsewhere in the Capitol building. Hours later, when the legislature returned, almost all Republican representatives from Arizona persisted in repeating the lie that their party did not, in fact, lose the elections in the state .
Why Are An Elephant And A Donkey The Party Symbols
The Democratic party is often associated with the colour blue and the donkey mascot.
That dates back to Democratic candidate Andrew Jackson’s 1828 presidential campaign, when opponents called him a “jackass” for his stubbornness.
Instead of taking the nickname as an insult, Jackson embraced it and used the donkey image on his election posters.
It was then quickly adopted by newspapers and political cartoonists.
The Republican’s elephant symbol came along years later.
Many believe it came about, in part, due to a widely used expression during the Civil War led by Republican president Abraham Lincoln.
Soldiers entering battle were said to be “seeing the elephant” a phrase that means learning a hard lesson, often with a profound cost.
The symbol was then popularised by political cartoonist Thomas Nast; an early rendition featured in the 1879 edition of Harper’s Weekly.
Both symbols are still largely used for political campaigns.
A Difficult Transition To Progressivism
In the countrys second critical election, in 1896, the Democrats split disastrously over the free-silver and Populist program of their presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan. Bryan lost by a wide margin to Republican William McKinley, a conservative who supported high tariffs and money based only on gold. From 1896 to 1932 the Democrats held the presidency only during the two terms of Woodrow Wilson , and even Wilsons presidency was considered somewhat of a fluke. Wilson won in 1912 because the Republican vote was divided between President William Howard Taft and former Republican president Theodore Roosevelt, the candidate of the new Bull Moose Party. Wilson championed various progressive economic reforms, including the breaking up of business monopolies and broader federal regulation of banking and industry. Although he led the United States into World War I to make the world safe for democracy, Wilsons brand of idealism and internationalism proved less attractive to voters during the spectacular prosperity of the 1920s than the Republicans frank embrace of big business. The Democrats lost decisively the presidential elections of 1920, 1924, and 1928.
Why Do We Have Red States And Blue States
If youve watched the news as a presidential election heats up, youre probably well aware that political pundits like to use the color red to represent the Republican Party and blue for the Democratic Party. A red state votes Republican in presidential elections and Senate races, while a blue state leans Democratic.
No matter which news program you favor, they all use these same colors to represent the parties. So it would be reasonable to assume these must be the official colors of these two parties and have been used for over a hundred years, right?
Surprisingly no. Republicans havent always been associated with the color , nor have Democrats affiliated their party with blue. In fact, the whole notion of consistently attaching a particular hue to each political party is a relatively new concept in the US, not emerging as a common distinction until the 2000 presidential election between Democrat and Vice President Al Gore and Republican Texas Governor George W. Bush.
But why red for Republicans? And why does blue stand for Democrats?
Lets break it down.
Figure 2 The Land Area Of The State Is Evenly Balanced Between The Two Parties
NOTE: Shading reflects share of votes cast for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election .
In Figure 2, California appears balanced between red and blue areas. But if we adjust the map so that places with more eligible residents take up more space, the blue places with large Democratic cities dominate the map, as shown in Figure 3. The interior may hold a majority of the states territory, but it accounts for a small fraction of its voting population.
Issues For Which Location Drives Opinion
Two of our issue questions showed strong geographic disagreement: housing and gun control. On these topics, the dense urban areas of the state hold far different opinions than more-rural areas.
California is in the midst of a housing crisis. The cost of housing is pricing people out of the state and contributes to high poverty rates . Overall, 67 percent of Californians say that housing affordability is a big problem in their part of the state. Figure 10 reveals clear geographic differences, especially between the coast and the inland areas. In most parts of the Bay Area, concern is remarkably high. This includes the counties of San Francisco , Marin , San Mateo , and Santa Clara , as well as in the East Bay . At the other extreme, concern falls below 40 percent in the most rural parts of the state, suggesting that there remain places in California where neither housing prices nor concern about them has reached elevated levels.
Energy Issues And The Environment
There have always been clashes between the parties on the issues of energy and the environment. Democrats believe in restricting drilling for oil or other avenues of fossil fuels to protect the environment while Republicans favor expanded drilling to produce more energy at a lower cost to consumers. Democrats will push and support with tax dollars alternative energy solutions while the Republicans favor allowing the market to decide which forms of energy are practical.
What Year Did The Democrats And Republicans Switch Platforms
4.4/5DemocraticRepublicansRepublicansDemocratsDemocrats
After the end of Reconstruction the Republican Party generally dominated the North while a resurgent Democratic Party dominated the South. By the late 19th century, as the Democratic and Republican parties became more established, party switching became less frequent.
Beside above, when did the South become Republican? Via the “Republican Revolution” in the 1994 elections, Republicans captured a majority of Southern House seats for the first time. Today, the South is considered a Republican stronghold at the state and federal levels, with Republicans holding majorities in every Southern state after the 2014 elections.
Similarly one may ask, when did Republicans and Democrats switch colors?
Since the 1984 election, CBS has used the opposite scheme: blue for Democrats, red for Republicans. ABC used yellow for Republicans and blue for Democrats in 1976, then red for Republicans and blue for Democrats in 1980 and 1984, and 1988.
What were the views of the Democratic Republican Party?
Democratic–Republicans were deeply committed to the principles of republicanism, which they feared were threatened by the supposed monarchical tendencies of the Federalists. During the 1790s, the party strongly opposed Federalist programs, including the national bank.
Red States And Blue States List
Due to the TV coverage during some of the presidential elections in the past, the color Red has become associated with the Republicans and Blue is associated with the Democrats.
The Democratic Party, once dominant in the Southeastern United States, is now strongest in the Northeast , Great Lakes Region, as well as along the Pacific Coast , including Hawaii. The Democrats are also strongest in major cities. Recently, Democratic candidates have been faring better in some southern states, such as Virginia, Arkansas, and Florida, and in the Rocky Mountain states, especially Colorado, Montana, Nevada, and New Mexico.
Since 1980, geographically the Republican “base” is strongest in the South and West, and weakest in the Northeast and the Pacific Coast. The Republican Party’s strongest focus of political influence lies in the Great Plains states, particularly Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, and in the western states of Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah.
Was The Donkey Originally A Jackass
Thomas Nast was an American cartoonist who joined the staff of Harpers Weekly in 1862. Nasts cartoons were very popular and his depiction of Santa Claus is still the most widely used version of the holiday icon we see today. During his career, Nast also drew many political cartoons that harshly criticized the policies of both parties.
Nast first used a donkey to represent the Democratic party as a whole in the 1870 cartoon A Live Jack-Ass Kicking a Lion in which Nast criticized the dominantly Democratic Southern newspaper industry as the Copperhead Press. While he did popularize the donkey, Nast wasnt the first person to use it in reference to the Democrats.
Over 40 years earlier during the presidential campaign of 1828, opponents of Democrat Andrew Jackson referred to him as a jackass. Jackson actually embraced the insult and used donkeys on several campaign posters. Nevertheless, cartoonist Anthony Imbert would use a Jackson-headed donkey to mock Jackson an 1833 political cartoon.
However, the donkey never really caught on after the end of Jacksons presidency, and Thomas Nast apparently had no knowledge that it ever was used to represent the Democrats.
Who Are Prominent Democrats
Notable Democrats include Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was the only president to be elected to the White House four times, and Barack Obama, who was the first African American president . Other Democratic presidents include John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. The latters wife, Hillary Clinton, made history in 2016 as the first woman to win the presidential nomination of a major U.S. political party, though she ultimately lost the election. In 1968 Shirley Chisholm won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first African American woman elected to Congress, and in 2007 Nancy Pelosi became the first woman to serve as speaker of the House.
Democratic Party, in the United States, one of the two major political parties, the other being the Republican Party.
Harper’s Weekly
The Democratic Party Hasnt Put A Lot Of Investment Into Our Communities Its Why Weve Built Independent Vehicles To Reach Our Folks
Tania Unzueta, political director, Mijente
Her experience is illustrative of a broader pattern. Neither political party can claim they are behind 2020s record-high turnout of voters of color, experts told Capital & Main. Rather, grassroots groups across the United States are responsible for expanding the electorate through localized efforts, despite ineffective outreach from the Democratic Party and active suppression by the Republicans.
The Democratic Party hasnt put a lot of investment into our communities. Its why weve built independent vehicles to reach our folks, said Tania Unzueta, the political director for Mijente, a national network focused on engaging eligible Latinx voters in battleground states, including North Carolina and Georgia.
The new generation of voters of color activated by these on-the-ground efforts may have tipped the scales in key states this election, and are likely to shape future races, whether or not the parties decide to engage with them.
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The Democratic Partys path to victory in this election hinged heavily on the fast-growing demographics of eligible voters of color, said Dorian Warren, the president of Community Change, a national network of grassroots political organizers.
This years elections marked the first time that eligible Latinx voters, who tend to show less partisan loyalty than other groups, surpassed Black voters to become the largest non-white voting bloc.
History Of The Republican Party
The Republican Party came into existence just prior to the Civil War due to their long-time stance in favor of abolition of slavery. They were a small third-party who nominated John C. Freemont for President in 1856. In 1860 they became an established political party when their nominee Abraham Lincoln was elected as President of the United States. Lincolns Presidency throughout the war, including his policies to end slavery for good helped solidify the Republican Party as a major force in American politics. The elephant was chosen as their symbol in 1874 based on a cartoon in Harpers Weekly that depicted the new party as an elephant.
From Watergate To A New Millennium
From 1972 to 1988 the Democrats lost four of five presidential elections. In 1972 the party nominated antiwar candidate George S. McGovern, who lost to Nixon in one of the biggest landslides in U.S. electoral history. Two years later the Watergate scandal forced Nixons resignation, enabling Jimmy Carter, then the Democratic governor of Georgia, to defeat Gerald R. Ford, Nixons successor, in 1976. Although Carter orchestrated the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, his presidency was plagued by a sluggish economy and by the crisis over the kidnapping and prolonged captivity of U.S. diplomats in Iran following the Islamic revolution there in 1979. Carter was defeated in 1980 by conservative Republican Ronald W. Reagan, who was easily reelected in 1984 against Carters vice president, Walter F. Mondale. Mondales running mate, Geraldine A. Ferraro, was the first female candidate on a major-party ticket. Reagans vice president, George Bush, defeated Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis in 1988. Despite its losses in the presidential elections of the 1970s and 80s, the Democratic Party continued to control both houses of Congress for most of the period .
Lake Reagan Floods The Us In 1980
In 1980, as Ronald Regan gradually overwhelmed his opponent Jimmy Carter, one TV anchor referred to the Republican victory spreading across the US map like a suburban swimming pool, which the Presidents supporters subsequently dubbed Lake Reagan.
However, this all changed after the interminable 2000 election, when George W Bush eventually overcame Al Gore after 36 days of recounts and controversy.
That year, TV networks had opted to represent the Republicans with red, a system followed by the New York Times and USA Today when the newspapers published their first ever full-colour election results maps.
Archie Tse, the senior graphics editor for the New York Times, told the Smithsonian Magazine that the newspapers decision was not particularly thought out.
I just decided red begins with R, Republican begins with R, he said. It was a more natural association there wasnt much discussion about it.
With the US glued to its TV screens and anxiously scanning newspapers for weeks awaiting the result, colours chosen near enough at random gradually ingrained themselves in the nations consciousness.
And by the time President Bushs victory was finally declared on 12 December 2000, it seemed unforseeable that the victorious Republicans would ever be anything other than red, and the Democrats blue.
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