2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Liberals aren't Democrats? [View all]merrily
(45,251 posts)circumstances On DU, however, we should start with the assumption that everyone who posts read the TOS at some point and therefore is a Democrat or an outright disruptor who will soon be banned. Ergo, on DU, people should not have to say things like, "I am a Democrat."
Besides, it is how one registered to vote that is the be all and end all? Or one's set of political goals and ideals?
The first time I registered, I registered as a Democrat. Then I moved to Massachusetts.
In Massachusetts, which is extraordinarily blue as far as modern day Presidential elections, almost everyone registers independent, and so did I. In 2004, I was so butthurt that Bush got re-elected that, as a personal protest, I walked to City Hall and changed my registration to Democratic None of it made a bit of difference in my voting behavior.
Republicans were once the more liberal of the two parties, esp. on the race issue (liberal, as things up to the early 20th century go). Martin Luther King, Sr. was a Republican for that reason So was Senator Brooke of Massachusetts (or so he later said).
But, the parties morphed on that issue. Should people who were pro the Civil Rights Act have self identified "first" as Republican, or should they have self identified as believers in equal rights? Does Party really trump everything?