Negative List: Democrats

[Alejandro C]

I'm trying to put together a list of bad things, mistakes, scandals, for the American Democratic party during the last 8 years; please help. I'm trying to keep it clear and concise. This list will then be combined with a list from the Republicans and used to discourage people from voting for either party.

Thanks for the help and please keep it to the last 8 years.

Here's what I have so far:

DemocratJames Trafficant
Jim McGreevey
Voting for Iraq war
William J. Jefferson
Superdelegates fiasco for the 'democratic' party

STILL supporting the electoral college
Funding the Iraq war
Voting for Patriot Act
re-authorizing the Patriot Act
Allowing the illegal wiretapping
Giving the telecom companies immunity
Not Impeaching Bush
Elliot Spitzer
Letting Hillary Clinton get as far as she has in the primaries
Allowing Bush to expand the executive branch and trample on the Constitution
Being generally spineless like a political windsock

[Justin CF]

I think your problem is that some of your points are things that people don't care about. For instance, "Letting Hillary Clinton get as far as she has in the primaries". The very same people you're trying to convince not to vote for the dems are the ones who let her get this far.

Also, I think that explaining why the parties suck won't do much. People vote for candidates, not parties. A better approach would be to point out that while voting for 3rd-parties/independents doesn't do much in the short term, it does make both big parties pander to you in the next election. A good example of this would be the populist party at the turn of century, which managed to put in place better economic conditions for rural farmers (as well as others).

[Alejandro C]

Good, I'll take that out of the list- thanks.

In my experiences with American Politics people don't vote for the candidates or for the party, they vote AGAINST a candidate/party.
I've been active in politics for awhile now and I always ask people why they vote for who they voted for. Nearly 100% of the time they will reply with a negative about the opposing party/candidate. For example go find someone who voted in the 2004 election. If they are a Democrat and you ask them why they voted for Kerry I'm positive they will start off , "because Bush..." or "because the Republicans..."
Similarly if they voted for Bush they will answer about Kerry and the Democrats.

In my opinion this is the major strengthener of the two party system. For a long time in American politics people have voted against the opposition instead of for their candidate. The only exceptions in the past half century that I can think of are Clinton and Reagan.

However, this election seems to be playing out differently. Both parties seem to have picked good candidates. What I mean by that is both parties have chosen candidates that their people can be 'for'.
Because of this the best way I've thought of to dissuade people from voting for these candidates is to remind them of the horrible ways the candidates parties have been running the country in the past 8 years.


So my updated list is:


James Trafficant
Jim McGreevey
Voting for Iraq war
William J. Jefferson
Superdelegates fiasco for the 'democratic' party
STILL supporting the electoral college
Funding the Iraq war
Voting for Patriot Act
re-authorizing the Patriot Act
Allowing the illegal wiretapping
Giving the telecom companies immunity
Not Impeaching Bush
Elliot Spitzer
Allowing Bush to expand the executive branch and trample on the Constitution

[BIG BROTHER]

I would add, how clinton made the deal of NAFTA with our reactionary mexican goverment, and that eventually lead to a lot of farmers loosing their lands.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Why are you picking on the Democrats? Why not just attack the whole rotten system?

[manic expression]

I think it's important to remember the many instances of the Democrats' reactionary policies, because when liberals argue against revolutionary movements, they paint a rosy picture of a country run by Democrats. We need to be able to succinctly and fully debunk the idea that Democrats are less elitist and imperialist than Republicans. However, it is also true that it is basically one "whole rotten system", and that any capitalist system would bring similar consequences. Both of these concepts are important IMO.

By the way, the end of welfare really hurt the American working class.

[BIG BROTHER]

Why are you picking on the Democrats? Why not just attack the whole rotten system?

I'm assuming he's doing that because most people in the U.S. don't see the system as the problem, but the republican rule as the problem. And by attacking the democrats, you can show that the answer isn't in capitalist democracy.

[Justin CF]

Why are you picking on the Democrats? Why not just attack the whole rotten system?Actually, he made a separate thread for the republicans for the sake of keeping it all organized.

[Cheung Mo]

Nancy Pelosi -- another Tony Blair Feminist who prefers female careerists to male socialist -- defended Dumb Chip from the truthful and eloquent attacks of one Hugo Chavez. I favour re-education camp for any self-described progressive or socialist who prefers the Clintons to the Bolivarians.

[Alejandro C]

I originally was going to keep it to the last 8 years, but I don't know why it has to be like that and NAFTA is a great edition.
So I think I'll change it to 'recent' instead of for the last 8 years and update the list to:

NAFTA
James Trafficant
Jim McGreevey
Voting for Iraq war
William J. Jefferson
Superdelegates fiasco for the 'democratic' party
STILL supporting the electoral college
Funding the Iraq war
Voting for Patriot Act
re-authorizing the Patriot Act
Allowing the illegal wiretapping
Giving the telecom companies immunity
Not Impeaching Bush
Elliot Spitzer
Allowing Bush to expand the executive branch and trample on the Constitution


Comrade JoseFransisco explained it better that how I did but yes I'm trying to show that the system in America doesn't work and that the interests of the people are not being put forth by the ruling party(s)

Comrade Cheung Mo- Do you think I should just put Nancy Pelosi on the list or how should I phrase it?

Thank you all for your imput