One friend pointed me to another discussion already shared. I found it some of the talk to be a wonderfully succinct distinction between Republican and Democratic motives. It helped me clarify some of the broad brushstrokes of the two primary parties. With permission, I've included it here:
"It’s ultimately a difference of world view. The reason Republicans and Democrats have such a hard time talking to each other is they have such different narratives about what’s important and how the world should work – and both world views are pretty self-consistent once you’re inside them. It’s just like a devout person and an atheist trying to have a conversation about religion – far from being able to convince the other of the truth of one’s viewpoint, they quickly find it almost impossible to even understand what each other are saying because their world views are just built on entirely different foundations.
The Republican narrative is of the independent and self-supporting individual with traditional old-fashioned values. If you buy into this narrative then you resist government regulation of industry because it restricts the entrepreneurs & markets which make our economy go and diminishes the freedom and ability of individuals to achieve that independent and self-supporting American dream. You’re not particularly worried about the effect of industry on the environment or society because mostly the free market will devise good solutions anyway before there’s too much of a problem, and you resist taxation – especially of businesses and their owners – because it fuels the government regulation (tampering with market forces) of which you disapprove because it slows our economy and job-creation and obstructs the free markets which could actually solve our problems better than big government, and tends to fund a culture of dependence which is at odds with your self-supporting values. You worry that the decay of traditional values as the basis for our society would in time erode and destroy it, and are therefore more than happy to turn to religious values as a blueprint for shoring up our civil society. Finally from the independent & self-supporting narrative comes your foreign policy of aggressively knocking down threats from the outside world – and resisting an unrestricted flow of immigrants who would in essence steal the advantages of our society from us without earning their place in it and by not sharing our traditional American values might undermine them.
The Democratic narrative is of members of the community supporting each other, and the idea that ultimately the community must come first before any particular individual. From this ultimate value springs your tolerance for government regulation because it prevents entrepreneurs and industries from getting out of hand, making profits for individuals at the community’s expense, especially by passing along hidden environmental or social costs to the community at large while pocketing a short term gain. You’re willing to be taxed because this is “paying your share” of the community upkeep, and think the wealthier and more successful members of the community (in particular rich business owners) should be paying a proportionately larger share – and the slower growth of business and markets which inevitably results you see as more than made up for by the social benefits. Out of your narrative of community also comes a sense of indignation when one segment of the community profits at the expense of another or sets itself up as dominant over another: this leads both to your championing of minority causes large and small and your resistance to one society group’s “traditional values” (even if it is the majority group) being elevated over another’s. Traditional values often sound arbitrary and non-rational, and should be allowed gradually to erode and be replaced by the wisdom of the community – through science and research when possible. Possibly you also perceive yourself as a member of one or more disadvantaged or minority groups, whether racial, religious, gender, or otherwise, which leads you both to be more willing to discard some or many traditional American values (since they aren’t yours), and to identify with the struggles of other similarly disadvantaged groups.
The narrative of the community also extends to foreign policy, where you see it as most important to make friends in the world community (even sometimes at the expense of our short term interests). And you see potential immigrants as fellow members of the world community who deserve a chance to succeed as much as we do and who would contribute productively to our society if only given that chance.
Try to put yourself inside of either world view and you’ll find it pretty self consistent. And both of the ultimate foundations (valuing the individual and valuing the community) are attractive ideals which have been with us for a long time. The rest of the political scene is just an ongoing power struggle between those two camps – in particular the propaganda battle to attract the “swing voters”, the ones who are either sufficiently torn between the two world views (e.g. the atheist wealthy business owner, the devout environmentalist) to be influenced or haven’t thought enough about their world views to have picked a side and can perhaps be swayed by slogans, feel-good appeals, etc." ~ Brian Reynolds of Baltimore
The narrative of the community also extends to foreign policy, where you see it as most important to make friends in the world community (even sometimes at the expense of our short term interests). And you see potential immigrants as fellow members of the world community who deserve a chance to succeed as much as we do and who would contribute productively to our society if only given that chance.
Try to put yourself inside of either world view and you’ll find it pretty self consistent. And both of the ultimate foundations (valuing the individual and valuing the community) are attractive ideals which have been with us for a long time. The rest of the political scene is just an ongoing power struggle between those two camps – in particular the propaganda battle to attract the “swing voters”, the ones who are either sufficiently torn between the two world views (e.g. the atheist wealthy business owner, the devout environmentalist) to be influenced or haven’t thought enough about their world views to have picked a side and can perhaps be swayed by slogans, feel-good appeals, etc." ~ Brian Reynolds of Baltimore
