Have Democrats Become the Party of the Rich?

With the influence of corporate interests and higher government on political parties, it seems that voting's becoming a decreasing relevant way of affecting changes in our society.

I think "party of the rich" type narratives are more just wonky narratives and ideology.

There's no reason that money isn't a temptation to any given politician, let alone party, and despite funding one round one way ... the folks in power will attract money regardless. Even if only because they're in power.

I remember a GOP chairman making a big deal about how he was going to wall street to do some fund raising after they had an election cycle where they got less from those folks than they expected and more money went to the other party. He publicly stated "We want to see if they have any buyer's remorse." .... It was pretty clear it was an ongoing competition.

Well, yes. Yes, they have. To be fair, so are the republicans.

This has been the case since like when -the 90's, when Clinton took the party rightward? That sounds correct to me.

Assuming that most rich people are college educated or tech people (both overwhelmingly left wing), then it makes perfect sense.

A lot of people have an attitude that politics is just politics, a corrupted game that can't be changed and don't spend much time researching the topic.

Whatever gets propagandised in their environment becomes their belief. It happens gradually; when talking to people with a clear view on something the person who doesn't have counterarguments will just start accepting those good points - and eventually he will start repeating them.

As a kid I didn't care much about soccer and yet, when asked, my favourite soccer team was the same as my friends.

In terms of companies, it also makes sense for big tech and big business in general to be pro regulation and pro taxes: regulations just stifle their small competitors and taxes are mostly hitting people (either as income tax or as increased cost of goods).

This is quite a futile exercise anyway, whether it was republicans or democrats, whenever they're in power they start spending like crazy (on different things).

If it's republicans you can hope they won't raise taxes and won't wreck the economy, if it's democrats you can hope they will give some freedom back to people (eg. drugs legalisation, gay marriage).

There are no mainstream defenders of small government anymore, unfortunately.

In my experience the ideology of the left has a lot of appeal among the rich who want to just feel they are good.

And the right has some unhinged aggressive component of "see, being good is hypocrisy, so it's better to be bad".

The way I see it, both parties run up the deficit. Spending is always going to be more than what is brought in from all forms of taxation because it seems to be the norm.

OUTLAYS $6.8 Trillion

REVENUES $3.8 Trillion

DEFICIT $3.0 Trillion

[1] https://www.cbo.gov/topics/budget

Democrats say they will take from the rich (lately) through increased taxes and redistribute, but do they actually? Or do they just take from people making $200k/yr+ who are kind of rich but not... ultra rich? How do you tax wealth? Not easily. Lots of loopholes. Would piss a lot of powerful people who lobby + and are "secretly" in control off, right? That's what we've been told our entire lives. Is it actually true?

How long has this level of revenue/outlay deficit been the norm? Will it always be? Does it matter? Some say it doesn't. Are we ever going to see a budget with a $0 deficit? How about a surplus?

Conservatives claim they are conservative in spending (actually, do they claim this anymore?) but then they run up the deficit with tax breaks for corporations and "the wealthy". Yes, that leads to some job creation/raises. Does the wealth actually trickle down? Doesn't it trickle back up? Democrats say they want to do well by offering the lower + middle class better health care/a better life overall (better schools, incentives to fix systemic racism, extra support for LGBT community), but I don't know how effective they are at doing it. It's hard to get a straight answer when 50% of America hates each other and is rooting for the other side to fail / be caught in a giant lie or scandal constantly.

From my research, America is behind EU and the rest of the developed world in a lot of measurements when it comes to health care, infrastructure, education, etc. We're fatter and dumber than most countries and less modern in our transportation. Yet we're somehow this economic powerhouse of the world and that keeps us ahead. But we're also continuing to run budgets with huge deficits...?

I wish I had a clear answer on politics. It seems like 95% of tech employees take the "I'm educated and I pick Democrat" path. It feels wrong to side with Republicans given their track record and the fact that it's 2021 and they're trying to bring religion into discussion about abortion (and they're obsessed with right to own assault rifles). It doesn't feel like Republicans care about lower/middle class America, whereas Democrats claim they do (they just want to give you health care and redistribute the wealth from the top, so they say... right? Am I crazy? Is this not the theming of American Democrats lately?)

Somebody who is smarter than me, please chime in and help me not be ignorant.

Given the way US election systems and campaigning requirements operate all parties are parties of the rich. The only difference is which block of poorer people they claim to pander to get some of the votes. Neither actually makes a significantly major difference to their preferred lower income demographic. That said though, I don't feel the two parties are interchangeable. Just the support for lesser restrictions for women's health and reproductive services makes Democrats a superior option.

They’ve become the party whose base ranges from the urban (cosmopolitan) to the suburban now instead of the previous urban (ethnic workers and people of color) and rural. Even as recently as 2008 Democrats were competitive in flyover country and Obama won a remarkable number of rural counties. But now politics has become polarized more on the educational axis and less on race or class than it was previously (but it still is, and it’s why black men with the same educational attainment as white men vote Democrat by 65+ point margins even if I used to be 80 point margins)