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eridani

(51,907 posts)
Sun Jul 28, 2013, 07:03 AM Jul 2013

Robert Reich | Why Republicans are Disciplined and Democrats Aren’t

http://www.nationofchange.org/why-republicans-are-disciplined-and-democrats-aren-t-1374845972

Republican discipline and Democratic lack of discipline isn’t a new phenomenon. As Will Rogers once said, “I’m not a member of any organized political party. I’m a Democrat."

The difference has to do with the kind of personalities the two parties attract. People who respect authority, follow orders, want clear answers, obey commands, and prefer precise organization and control, tend to gravitate toward Republicans.

On the other hand, people who don’t much like authority, recoil from orders, don’t believe in clear answers, often disobey commands, and prefer things a bit undefined, tend to gravitate to the Democrats.

In short, the Republican Party is the party of the authoritarian personality; the Democratic Party is the party of the anti-authoritarian personality.

In "Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics" (Cambridge University Press, 2009), Jonathan Weiler, professor of international studies at UNC Chapel Hill and his co-author, Marc Hetherington, use statistical models to determine whether someone is a Republican or Democrat. It turns out that the best predictor of party affiliation is someone’s score on an authoritarian personality scale that measures many of the traits I mentioned above.

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Robert Reich | Why Republicans are Disciplined and Democrats Aren’t (Original Post) eridani Jul 2013 OP
republicans like to be beaten wilt the stilt Jul 2013 #1
The beauty of the republican party Cosmocat Jul 2013 #2
You've nailed it. When you try to point this out to them, Arkansas Granny Jul 2013 #4
yeah Cosmocat Jul 2013 #13
Yup. Their hypocrisy runneth over. RBInMaine Jul 2013 #5
Good summary... KansDem Jul 2013 #6
yep Cosmocat Jul 2013 #12
Grabbing the "morality" rights by naming the protests in NC "Moral Mondays" mnhtnbb Jul 2013 #7
Good stuff Cosmocat Jul 2013 #8
Wow ... 1StrongBlackMan Jul 2013 #9
Funny isn't it Cosmocat Jul 2013 #11
No, not really ... 1StrongBlackMan Jul 2013 #14
I must admit Cosmocat Jul 2013 #17
+1 JoePhilly Jul 2013 #20
k&r for exposure. n/t Laelth Jul 2013 #3
Republicans/conservatives like to categorize the world into good and bad. DCBob Jul 2013 #10
That explains all JoeyT Jul 2013 #15
Republicans keep their eyes on the prize. Local races, gerymandering bklyncowgirl Jul 2013 #16
I've said this before tabbycat31 Jul 2013 #18
I agree to a certain extent because I've met some dems who like to be told how to think too. JRLeft Jul 2013 #19
I guess one could call teabaggery "disciplined." I just call it "teabaggery." yellowcanine Jul 2013 #21

Cosmocat

(14,535 posts)
2. The beauty of the republican party
Sun Jul 28, 2013, 07:50 AM
Jul 2013

is how it has been framed by talk radio since the 80s.

It really is a good gig being a "conservative."

You get to proud, you get to know that you are a REAL and TRUE American while being able to slag off on 90% of everyone else in the country.

You get to revel in how you are person of self reliance while taking whatever you can get. See, cause you are a CONSERVATIVE you get to get SS, Medicare or Medicade, disability, you get to work for the government in some way and have a tax payer funded job or work for a business that relies heavily on tax payer dollars, you can do all of this and it is OK cause there are these scumbag takers who just suck off the system.

You get to celebrate your PERSONAL RESPONSIBLITY while always being the victim. A victim of quotas, a victim of social engineering it goes on and on.

You get to scream about liberty, freedom and F YOU to anyone who says you can't do whatever it is that you want to do while FOREVER being offended by what others are doing and finding whatever rationalization you can to have government force them to stop. You get to have a "this truck gets 2 miles per gallon cause of our Freedoms!" on the freight train you drive while you drive to a rally for legislation against marriage equality.

It really is a heady thing, being a conservative.

By playing for that team you get absolute moral authority while having a never ending stream of LIBERAL boogymen to rail against.

Arkansas Granny

(31,476 posts)
4. You've nailed it. When you try to point this out to them,
Sun Jul 28, 2013, 08:07 AM
Jul 2013

they stick their fingers in their ears and do the "la-la-la, I can't hear you" thing. They don't want to hear facts because it doesn't concur with their self important delusions.

Cosmocat

(14,535 posts)
13. yeah
Sun Jul 28, 2013, 04:38 PM
Jul 2013

I do have republican friends I can have political discussions with, but I have LONG given up trying to talk sense to someone to convince him otherwise.

KansDem

(28,498 posts)
6. Good summary...
Sun Jul 28, 2013, 08:24 AM
Jul 2013

Just yesterday I saw a "Romney/Ryan" bumper sticker on a car parked in a handicapped space.

It struck me as funny...

Cosmocat

(14,535 posts)
12. yep
Sun Jul 28, 2013, 04:37 PM
Jul 2013

I have noticed that.

You see a political sticker in a handicap space, 9 out of 10 times, R ...

mnhtnbb

(31,302 posts)
7. Grabbing the "morality" rights by naming the protests in NC "Moral Mondays"
Sun Jul 28, 2013, 08:43 AM
Jul 2013

was a stroke of genius by Wm. Barber, the leader of the NC NAACP.

It's about time the left name what is going on in this country.

Even though this article is from TIME, it's a pretty good summary.

The man behind the Moral Mondays movement, Rev. William Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP and a Disciples of Christ minister, says he is undeterred. The Moral Mondays are the result of seven years of progressive organizing for a new Southern ‘fusion politics’—a new multi-ethnic, multi-religious coalition with an anti-racist, anti-poverty agenda. Their goal, he continues, is “to directly attack the old divisions of the white southern strategy and what we believe were the shortcomings of the so-called Christian evangelical right that limits issues in the public square to things like prayer in school, abortion, and gender issues.”

His goals are bigger than just changing policies and looking toward the 2014 election. Barber believes the South is in the middle of what he calls the “third reconstruction.” Changing demographics in America, and state battles over voting rights laws, he claims, echo both the first reconstruction, which was voting rights for African Americans after the civil war, and the second reconstruction, which was the Civil Rights movement. A new southern strategy must, he says, be “rooted in the idea of the deep moral issues about faith, our constitution, anti-racism, anti-poverty, that can break open the solid south and put holes in it so that we expand the electorate, we expand the discourse, we destroy the myth that when you hurt entitlements you only hurt certain folk.”

Barber, 49, sees North Carolina as a necessary test case. Republicans won both houses of the General Assembly in 2010 for the first time in more than a century, and the state that swung from President Obama in 2008 to Mitt Romney in 2012. “[Republicans] believe if they can get away with this in a progressive, southern state, then it pours water on the aspirations of the rest of the southern states,” Barber says. Barber has a masters degree from Duke Divinity School and a doctorate in Public Policy and Pastoral Care from Drew University, and he worked on Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign.

Local Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and United Methodist leaders issued a joint statement in early June supporting the Moral Mondays purpose, if not their means of civil disobedience. Their concern, the faith leaders explain, is “not an act of political partisanship”—instead “it is a matter of faith with respect to our understanding of the biblical teachings and imperatives to protect the poor, respect the stranger, care for widows and children and love our neighbors (Isaiah 10:1‐2, Hebrews 13:2, James 1:27, Matthew 22:39, Galatians 5:14).”

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/07/01/moral-mondays-religious-progressives-protest-north-carolina-policies/#ixzz2aLMTdkn5


Cosmocat

(14,535 posts)
8. Good stuff
Sun Jul 28, 2013, 09:04 AM
Jul 2013

THIS is the kind of work democrats/progressives need to do.

The Republicans have been chasing their tails since early in the Bush II presidency.

They were all about states rights in the 90s, and have trampled them since for the most part, for example.

They are kind of going moment to moment and adapting their argument while arguing against what they were screaming for 10 minutes earlier.

They get away with it because they are unified with what they do at any given time and because there is no pushback from the media.

But, it is a muddle of messaging that leaves the opening for progressive to grab the high ground if there is the capacity to develop a strong position and rally around it.

 

1StrongBlackMan

(31,849 posts)
9. Wow ...
Sun Jul 28, 2013, 10:08 AM
Jul 2013

You must know my small business owning, rightwing conservative family friend, as you have ticked off all the things that I have pointed out to him about himself.

He came here from Canada (illegally) at the age of 14, and was naturalized at 18; and he is staunchly anti-Dream Act.

At the age of 19, he and his wife lived on food stamps and Pell Grants and (subsidized) loans; but taxation to support the social safety net is "governmental confisgation (sp?) at gunc point.

At the age of 25, he became a VP in the electrical contracting business; but there are jobs at McDonalds and Starbucks for all of the unemployed, if they'd just show a little initiative.

His electrical contracting firm gets a full 80% of its business from government contracts; but government doesn't create jobs.

He get a significant portion of his jobs through "small business" sub-contracting set-asides; but he is vocally opposed to "minority set-asides ... until he realized that women were minorities according to the set-aside programs, then his wife became a VP and he got a couple woman owned business set asides. But when his company was audited by the woman and minority business program, and it was determined that his VP wife was a VP on paper only and had no role in the operation of the business and the company was disqualified (but not prosecuted for fraud) ... government strangles business with its burdensome regulations.

He is rabidly anti-Obamacare; but offers his employees a choice between a cheap healthcare insurance plan that is little better than catastraphic coverage and a high deductible plan ($10,000 before the insurance company pays a dime). His family is coveraged by the high deductible plan and, as a corporate officer perk, the company pays his out of pocket medical payments up to $10,000 in a given year.

The list goes on ...

Cosmocat

(14,535 posts)
11. Funny isn't it
Sun Jul 28, 2013, 04:36 PM
Jul 2013

Every single developer or owner of a business that does large scale paving that I know are RABID Rs.

Developers rely more on making "deals" with government entities for tax breaks and the such, and most paving companies rely very much on government contracts.

This jackass I know at the gym. For years, literally, I tried to talk politics with him, but I gave up, cause I was just the "liberal" and he was relentless, wearing these right wing Obama t-shirts, ect.

Sells textbooks to ... colleges, where his company is reliant on the mix of tax dollars that goes into the college kitty.

His wife - public school teacher, so half of his income all tax dollars.

I was trying to talk about anything but politics with him the one day and we got talking about health stuff. Led to him proudly proclaiming how he takes his wife insurance because it is better than his company insurance. I had to walk away before I took a bar bell to his head. All the years of him skewering me as one of them there taker liberals, and he revels in my face about my tax dollars paying his insurance.

It goes on and on. I know and like and am friends with a LOT of republicans/conservatives. But, I swear to god, I have yet to meet one who isn't taking in some way like anyone else.

One last one. Family values and sanctity of marriage. Now, that of course is code for hating on gays, but let me just say. If I know 100 people who are divorced who have some political leanings, 80% of them are republicans. Very few outward liberal types do I know that are divorced.

One friend, a fairly prominent local republican party type, when I first knew him was on all this liberals are immoral scumbags thing. After a few years I was around him talking to someone about his "girlfriend." Turns out, his third marriage ...

 

1StrongBlackMan

(31,849 posts)
14. No, not really ...
Sun Jul 28, 2013, 06:36 PM
Jul 2013
One last one. Family values and sanctity of marriage. Now, that of course is code for hating on gays, but let me just say. If I know 100 people who are divorced who have some political leanings, 80% of them are republicans. Very few outward liberal types do I know that are divorced.

One friend, a fairly prominent local republican party type, when I first knew him was on all this liberals are immoral scumbags thing. After a few years I was around him talking to someone about his "girlfriend." Turns out, his third marriage ...


I don't think it's just code for hating on gays ... more, it's just B.S.

Yes, my friend is a family values, sanctity of marriage kind of person. But from the beginning of our relationship (he and his wife are my daughter's "god-parents" ... My wife worked with his wife before I came into the picture), I've felt a really strange vibe. I once saw the husband of a third couple, grab this guy's wife's ass ... okay, we were all drunk; but she didn't act surprised or protest. On another occasion, I was swimming in their pool and the wife of another one of their friends, stripped down to her panties and, without a word, dove into the pool (bra off) and swam across the pool to me, rubbed between my legs and smiled. (I got out the pool and told the wife, "time to go.&quot

I've told my wife that I believe them to be swingers, but she insisted I'm crazy. Until on another occasion, we were at a party and our friend's wife (drunk again) started talking about collecting the husbands' keys for a "key party."

Family values and sanctity of marriage ... my ass.

Cosmocat

(14,535 posts)
17. I must admit
Tue Jul 30, 2013, 07:01 AM
Jul 2013

I have little experience with being approached by swingers.

Yeah, overall, it is part of the general moral get out of jail card for them.

But, my neck of the woods, "sanctity of marriage" crap is absolutely a broad sweeping statement against gays.

DCBob

(24,689 posts)
10. Republicans/conservatives like to categorize the world into good and bad.
Sun Jul 28, 2013, 10:08 AM
Jul 2013

I think their simplistic brains can't deal with complex/nuanced issues that aren't simply right or wrong.

JoeyT

(6,785 posts)
15. That explains all
Sun Jul 28, 2013, 10:05 PM
Jul 2013

the people on a Democratic message board that insist we trust the government implicitly to know what's best for us because questioning the President is unpatriotic.

He's picking out the authoritarian Republicans and libertarian Democrats for his example. Switch the two and you get...well, not the exact opposite, but something different. Largely what you get is people that think the government should never be questioned, but don't recognize the other party as a legitimate authority.

bklyncowgirl

(7,960 posts)
16. Republicans keep their eyes on the prize. Local races, gerymandering
Mon Jul 29, 2013, 07:08 AM
Jul 2013

Democrats frequently don't even bother to run candidates and are even less likely to give them real backing. Tea Party types flock to the polls in low turnout elections and we wonder why Republican legislatures in swing states can do the things they do and why Congress is the way it is.

tabbycat31

(6,336 posts)
18. I've said this before
Tue Jul 30, 2013, 11:50 AM
Jul 2013

But a good comparison would be cats vs dogs. Democrats are cats. Independent, free spirits, and they can't be herded.

Republicans are dogs--- pack mentality, loyal, obedient, and will take orders.

This graphic sums it up.

<img></img>

 

JRLeft

(7,010 posts)
19. I agree to a certain extent because I've met some dems who like to be told how to think too.
Tue Jul 30, 2013, 12:38 PM
Jul 2013

But most repukes are authoritarian.

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