You can't see the difference between the current Democratic Party and GOP? I heard that argument for years, but now it's like saying there's no difference between day and night.
Locally you can see Democrats who would be considered Republicans or Republicans who act like Democrats. Bob Dole did many “democratic” things: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/us/politics/bob-dole-dead... and Clinton was a copy of a republican.
> Russell Republicans approached Mr. Dole in 1950 to run for the Kansas State Legislature — they saw the hometown war hero as an easy sell. But he had not yet picked a party, though his parents were New Deal Democrats. He said later that he had signed on with the Republicans after he was told that that’s what most Kansas voters were.
>He opposed many of the Great Society programs of President Lyndon B. Johnson, but he supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
> He was most proud of helping to rescue Social Security in 1983, of pushing the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 and of mustering a majority of reluctant Republicans to support Mr. Clinton’s unpopular plan to send American troops to Bosnia in 1995. (Mr. Dole was not wild about the deployment either, but he long believed that a president, of either party, should be supported once he decided something as important as committing troops abroad.)
For example, 13 house republicans voted for the infrastructure bill b'c their constituents will benefit from the bill. Shortly after, Trump and the ultra-right wing members of the house republicans publicly called them traitor, RINOs, and even democrats [1]. Additionally, they've received angry messages and death threats from their constituents b'c one of the house ultra-right wing republican shared their phone numbers on her twitter account.
0. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-po...
1. https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-criticize-13-col...
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/us/politics/republicans-b...
Did blaming Russia for the entire time not count? Everything you blame a “party” for the other “party” did the same thing, it’s just a political class.
Moderate Democrats dominate the party, as can be seen in the people in the White House, leading and controlling Congress, and even the next mayor of NY. In the GOP, arguably the most radical candidate ever was elected to the White House and dominates the party, with much of the party at the national and state level taking unprecendeted, radical steps to gain power, such as attempting to overthrow the will of the people: Most Republicans in Congress voted to overturn election results. You won't find both sides doing these things.
"[T]he real reason for progressives' passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans' individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism."
-- George Will, 2011 https://www.newsweek.com/will-why-liberals-love-trains-68597
Federal infrastructure spending is a "communist takeover of America, via so-called infrastructure".
-- Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene, 2021 https://www.newsweek.com/gop-rep-adam-kinzinger-mocks-marjor...
that said, I remember similar things being said about the Trans-Texas corridor when it was being proposed years ago, that it was just a secret way for Democrats to allow NWO troops into the US through Mexico to take over. So there definitely is a weird fear of mass transit infrastructure being some kind of socialist/communist plot among the American right. It still seems to be fringe, though. Rural voters want and depend on infrastructure spending, and it's an easy way to be seen "doing something."
I'm kind of inclined to agree that federal infrastructure spending is shit. The fed takes a bunch of money then gives it back with strings. The states should just be keeping that money and spending it as they see fit. This isn't exactly an uncommon opinion either.