Despite the important role of the Democratic Party in US political history, only few Americans can state the basic facts about its history. The democrats were dominating US politics in two distinct periods: between 1828 and 1860 and between 1932 and 2000. The establishment of the Democratic Party happened in 1829 when Andrew Jackson became the President of the Unites States. If many Americans did not like the ideas of Jackson in the 1820s ad 30s, the Democratic Party would never have been formed. Together with his followers, Jackson founded the Democratic Party. In those days, the democrats were definitely in favor of slavery and had widespread support in the southern states where slavery was still a normal aspect of daily life.

After the Civil War, the democrats became the party of big business and this was the main reason why it alienated the less prosperous voters in the north. Moreover, the democrats were able to perfect the urban political machine long before the Civil War by getting loyal votes from immigrants and others who were given jobs and services. This clever combination of large urban support in the north and the unquestionable support in the south, paved the way for the democrats to sometimes win the presidency or control Congress. This became explicitly apparent in the presidential elections of 1884 which was won by the democrat Grover Cleveland. He got the solid support from the south, the Border States, and even Indiana, New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.

In the era between the Civil War and the Depression, the democrats did not really stand for anything except the oppression of African Americans. The power of the democrats in those days was also facilitated by the prohibition of African Americans to vote in the south. This was obviously clear with the election of Woodrow Wilson who remained in office between 1913 and 1920. Wilson became president because he had the massive support from the south and gained significant advantage from the division among in the Republican Party. Despite the fact that he only received 41% of the popular vote, he got the presidency and thanks to the First World War he became a historic figure. After Wilson’s presidency, the democrats played a marginal role in US politics and this bad fate was turned around with a man-made disaster: the Great Depression. Read the rest of this entry »

Senator Joe Liebermam who just lost the Connecticut Democratic Party primary has registered to run for a fourth term as an ‘independant Democrat’. Senator Lieberman was, it seems, too moderate and too non partizan for the new far left Democratic Party. It seems that, nowdays, if you want to run for office as a Democrat you must toe the far left line and you must agree to denounce and fight everything the Republicans put forth. It’s Ok to lie, it’s OK to cheat but don’t you dare agree with anything a Republican says or does.

Michael Moore wrote:
Let the resounding defeat of Senator Joe Lieberman send a cold shiver down the spine of every Democrat who supported the invasion of Iraq and who continues to support, in any way, this senseless, immoral, unwinnable war. Make no mistake about it: We, the majority of Americans, want this war ended — and we will actively work to defeat each and every one of you who does not support an immediate end to this war.

Arianna Huffington wrote:
What Lieberman is doing is an act of betrayal and should be treated as such. Democratic donors, as Rick Jacobs suggests, need to let it be known that no Democrat running for office will see a penny from them unless they support Lamont.
and
Bottom line: all Democrats should immediately begin treating Lieberman as what he is — a party-ditching, party-pooping, control-of-Congress risking spoiler, ie a danger to the Party.

Senators Harry Reid of Nevada and Chuck Schumer of New York said:
The perception was that (Lieberman) was too close to George Bush and this was, in many respects, a referendum on the president more than anything else. Read the rest of this entry »

United States is a huge country. That and favorable conditions led to an early and advanced car culture (Canada, Russia, China, Brazil had various restrictions stifling that, ranging from permafrost to outright ban on private property). The love for cars and the infrastructure that makes it possible has been a source of national pride for decades and brought envious glances from around the world. As much as smaller vehicles make sense in urban areas, anybody who has been to rural U.S. would immediately appreciate the benefits of increased horsepower and vehicles whose size would be considered military grade elsewhere in the Western world. When you take into account that most Americans lost their virginity inside cars, the psychological obsession with motor vehicles begins to make sense. It’s no wonder that road trips hold a special place in the national consciousness and that advertisements for cars overly utilize freedom and sex appeal compared to how cars are marketed elsewhere (for more on this, check out advertising guru Clotaire Rapaille’s Culture Code).

However, the unfortunate side effect of Eisenhower administration’s emulation of Germany’s Autobahn (rather than large scale development of high speed public transit as in France or Japan) also allowed the whites to not live together with non-whites. Non-whites (and the poor in general) were subsequently never fully integrated into the national fabric since those better off could now move away from the poor into suburbia. Unlike the Soviets (who attempted national integration with their colonial subjects through mass education) or the British/French (who were geographically separated from non-white subjects), white Americans found a way to solve their disinterest of getting along through mass movements into the suburbs for which there was plenty of space for. Read the rest of this entry »