DEMOCRAT/REPUBLICAN

[Donovan]

Kind of a tricky question, since the defining characteristics of those two terms have actually switched places in the last half century. Originally, Republicans were the outsiders, the upstarts, whose central theme was progressive politics and the unity of the country over individual gain. They were the anti-slavery, pro- strong central government party. That's why they can claim Lincoln among their numbers. And for many years, the Democratic party, led by landed gentry and old plantation money of Southern morals, was the conservative party that held on to the old ways of pro-slavery, discrimination and class warfare with little to no government interference. This is why you have the term Dixiecrat right through the civil rights movement. The big switcheroo happened starting around 1900 with William J Bryan, but it really hit full force with FDR, who was a democrat when elected but who instituted huge sweeping government reforms to fight the Great Depression. After that, Democrats became more and more progressive which attracted liberal and minority voters, which led to the old-style conservative (and yes, racist) southern Democrats began to flock over to the Republican party by default. It was like the entire country basically switched sides without switching viewpoints.

So rather than asking what the differences are, the better question would be: do the people define the parties, or do the parties define the people?

Here's another fun fact. Both democratic and republican parties stem from essentially a single party, the Democratic-Republican party, which itself was an outsider faction at the earliest days of the USA led by guys like Thomas Jefferson. So basically "anti-establishment" has been a way to get elected since we began this crazy experiment, and once an outsider faction gains enough power there is invariably a split internally as the faction itself becomes the establishment. This is the true genius behind our political system. It's alive, and ever-evolving.