Exposing Republican Myths Edition #5

“Far-left liberals have hijacked the Democratic Party!” – typical argument

While I usually try to do these with statistics and other hard evidence, I believe this is really evident to anyone who’s being honest: The far Right has more influence in the Republican Party than the far Left has in the Democratic Party. In fact, the Democratic Party is a “centrist” party if there ever was one. It’s so much of one that liberals often criticize it for being so, including us. Are we simply crazy?

If I’m not mistaken, the “far Left” includes people like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Ralph Nader, and Michael Moore right? None of these people are Democrats. In fact, they actively criticize and work against the Democratic Party. Sure, the Democratic Party still has some of those in the “very liberal” category like Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio congressman who ran for president. The very fact that I felt the need to explain who is should show you how largely marginalized this type of Democrat is in the party. He barely registered in the polls during the primaries, and had very little influence on the Kerry campaign. Hell, most of these kinds of Democrats aren’t even Democrats anymore. They all left for the Green Party.

Now some of you are probably saying “Hey! What about John Kerry and Hillary Clinton!” Well look, I don’t care what you think a “far left” liberal is, I’m interested in talking about those who actually are “far left” liberals. If you look at their politics, look at what is considered to be “far left” and compare, you’ll find these people are hardly radicals, if not moderates on the political spectrum.

Now however, if you contrast this with the politics of mainstream Republicans and consider the actual policy influence of those on the far Right such as Grover Norquist and James Dobson, you’ll find the opposite to be true.

Now again, I usually do this with statistics, so let me throw one your way. If you look at the American electorate divided by party and the electorate divided by ideology, you'll find the following. On party lines, the electorate is divided about equally between Democrats, Republicans, and Independents/Other Parties at 33% each. If you look at it divided by ideology, however, you'll find the American electorate divided about 33% self-described conservatives, 20% self-described liberals, and the rest moderates (with a small fraction of different ideologies). Now even given that a small fraction of those 33% of conservatives aren't Republicans, that still leaves little room for moderates. However, also given that a small fraction of the 20% of liberals aren't Democrats (which I would argue is larger than non-Republican conservatives), that leaves about half of Democrats as moderates and half liberals. So which is, then, the more "moderate" of the two?

It occurs to me that many conservatives I know never criticize the Democratic Party’s mainstream, but the far left elements that they believe are in control. This simply isn’t true and is a construct of years of conservative propaganda. I would then ask them to consider the Republican Party and the far right-wing influences that really do exist and influence their party’s mainstream.

In short, if you want “centrism” and “moderation” you’ll find it in the Democratic Party, not the Republican Party.