If the Republican Party rejected their current ideology and embraced progressive principles...

[cynatnite]

such as support for gay marriage, pro-choice, single payer health care and the rest of it...would you leave the Dems?

This is a perfectly serious question that I hope you will consider carefully before answering. I'm not saying they will. They probably won't with its current leadership. Just curious.

[Forkboy]

1. Don't think I could do it, and I know I won't have to as they'll never do that.

:)

[cynatnite]

3. Husband and I were wondering what it would take for the repukes to come back...

from the abyss they're stuck in and this is what came to mind.

[polichick]

2. It's a lot more likely that we'll soon end up with two wholly corporate religious nutjob parties. nt

[noiretextatique]

5. the greens are looking better every day

since i keep throwing my vote away on D's. cue some centrist "grown up" telling me what a purist i am :eyes:

[polichick]

9. Around here a "purist" is actually a "wise progressive"...

:toast:

[noiretextatique]

21. indeed

:toast:

[AndrewP]

31. Right on

:toast:

[Bluzmann57]

4. If that were to happen

I may start preparing a survival kit because the end would be near.

[begin_within]

6. The R ideology is founded on a single principle of human selfishness, so no.

[cynatnite]

8. Even if they rejected their core principles and worked for progressive values? n/t

[begin_within]

11. Their core principle is the self and its primitive, childish wants

as I see it anyway. Progressive principles the collective society and the greater good of the whole. If they rejected their core principle then yes I would consider it if they offered something better than the Democrats and were willing to stick to it and fight for it, and not backtrack and compromise endlessly until they end up with nothing they wanted.

[customerserviceguy]

22. If they rejected their core principles, and worked for progressive values

then they wouldn't be Republicans anymore, would they?

[cynatnite]

23. A lot of folks are very unhappy with the Dems right now and if the repukes...

went left of them and adopted progressive values, then it's possible they'd strip the Dems of their base. That's how I'm looking at this.

It wasn't that long ago that Republicans were the abolitionist party and the Dems were wanting to preserve the institution of slavery. Political parties do have a tendency to go full circle.

[customerserviceguy]

27. Not even in an alternative universe is that gonna happen

I cannot see people who identify themselves as Republicans suddenly outflanking the Blue Dogs. Whatever forces would move a self-identified Republican would move the Blue Dog first.

That transformation that you mention took a long time. Democratic congresscritters from the South were still anti-integration a hundred years after the Civil War. The Republicans embraced abolition of slavery primarily because it would weaken their enemy in the South.

Many of the Democratic values of the New Deal are still alive and well in most parts of the party today. The stimulus bill that passed earlier this year looks very much like one FDR would have had his people write up, if they were alive and running the country today.

[cynatnite]

29. You're right...

but, the republican party has been going even farther right while the Dems haven't been willing to do what the American people have demanded of them. While it may take quite a while for it to go far enough to outflank the current Dem party, I'm thinking eventually, it will have to do something drastic just to become a viable party again.

[customerserviceguy]

32. You have to look at it from a different perspective

There is this group of districts that are in the middle. No matter what, they're not going to be hard right, nor are they going to be completely progressive. They are the swing districts in this country.

When they elect Blue Dogs to Congress, the GOP looks like it has swung radically to the right. And it has, in a way, because they don't have that many moderate Republicans reining them in. That usually also happens when they lose control of Congress, and especially the White House, too, because they know that they can say any damn well fool-ass conservative thing they can, because there's zero chance of it actually becoming law.

When those moderate districts elect GOP'ers, then the Democratic Party looks like it has shifted to the left, because of the reasons noted above. Flip-flop, flip-flop, that's the way it goes. Generally, a swing district stays one way unless there is an overriding concern. When the Democratic Party took over Congress a generation ago, it was over civil rights and the Vietnam War. When the Repukes took it back in 1980, it was over inflation and the malaise of the Carter years. When the Democratic Party took it back about a dozen years later, it was because Bush the First looked wishy-washy. When the Rethugs took it back in 1994, it was because of the ham-handed way that healthcare was handled, and a lack of confidence in Bill Clinton (that he quickly corrected). We took it back over the last few years because of Afghanistan and Iraq (a/k/a Vietnam, Part II).

Each party wants to be in the majority, but because of the effects of having to attract swing districts, there's a cost. And that cost is having to moderate your core values somewhat, every once in awhile. The Democratic Party is a viable party, it just needs to make sure that it can accomplish it's goals one step at a time. First step, get elected, second step, stay elected. You do the latter by making sure you accomplish most of your goals, and reach for the rest of them after you've established that you knew how to do the first part of it satisfactorily.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. I'd go with anyone that endorses and works to enact a truly progressive platform.

The parties kinda switched roles before, in the period between Lincoln & FDR. I guess it's conceivable that it could happen again. Not bloody likely, but, in the sense in which St. Anselm used the term, conceivable.

[Shagbark Hickory]

10. If they were as pro-universal healthcare as they are pro-war, then you betcha.

I can see how they blow money we don't have on war.
If they blew as much money on healthcare for all, we'd all live to 110 or more.

[LuvNewcastle]

12. I vote Democratic because of

the party's position on the issues. If the Republicans became the party that represented those issues best, then I would have to vote for them.

[notesdev]

13. If that came to pass

than I will have won the lottery five times by then and wouldn't care... cuz I'd own the moon too and all the cheese factories on it would be unionized

[Sebastian Doyle]

14. That all depends

How easy would it be for me to register to vote in the parallel universe where this has occurred?

[geek tragedy]

15. What if C-A-T spelled "dog?" nt

[marmar]

16. Probably won't?

Big on understatement, I see.

[Countdown_3_2_1]

17. I believe that after I see the "My Little Pony Glue Factory" for sale

As if any text could follow that.

[Walk away]

18. Wouldn't that make them Democrats? n/t

[cali]

19. If ifs and ands were pots and pans and the sea were ink and all the trees were

bread and cheese, what would there be to drink?

[The Wielding Truth]

20. IF up were down and blue were red, I would vote for the proven record party.

[baldguy]

24. I'd be happy if they rejected their current ideology and embraced conservative principals.

[butterfly77]

25. No,I would never believe them...

they would be pretending until,they obtained office..They are a bunch of liars.

[anonymous171]

26. Of course I would. The GOP has a superior political machine anyways.

Which means that they would ACTUALLY GET SHIT DONE., unlike the dems.

[C_Lawyer09]

30. It's sad to say

But look at what Rove and/or Atwater did for the Repubs, their tactics disgusted me but they got results. I felt like I got kicked in the nuts after Swiftboat vets for truth and the vacuum of a Dem response. I kept wishing I was Kerry's campaign manager.

[C_Lawyer09]

28. I would

Why don't some of you "progressives" work for getting third party candidates on state ballots, making then electable in the future? Also I'm curious if any of you have ever listened to speeches by some of the greens and/or libertarians? I only ask because there seems to be a lot of divisiveness in here amongst the self described liberals and moderates. Please don't get all nutty because I posed this question, just curious. I'm for function over form.