Reply #15: Yes, it's code for "We can serve the ruling class better than R's"

[JoshK]

- as you suggested. (This was exemplified by the Kerry campaign, when he claimed he could fight a "better, smarter, more effective war on terror" -- ie, carry out Bush's policy more cleverly than Bush could.)

However, the Democratic Party has NEVER opposed rule of the multimillionaire class. (The New Deal was an effort to save the established capitalist order from itself, by forcing it to make significant short-term concessions, for the longer-term goal of continued rule.)

It is absurd and naive to conceive of the Dem Party as "the party of the people." Only idiots believe that. The function of the party is to rope in the more tolerant, less authoritarian half of the population, and keep them locked within the framework of the 2-party system, which is explicitly designed to assure continued multimillionaire class rule.

The wrong way to conceive of the political system is "Repubs are for the rich, but Dems are for 'the people.'" The correct way to understand it is that the 2-party system is a single entity that is used to fool the majority of the population, giving them the illusion of choice without the substance. It's not that the Dems are "the same" as Repubs; it's that they have a different role in the system -- namely, pacifying the tolerant half of the populace while still managing to keep them in line with the interests of big capital.

About your second question -- the lib wing of the Dems is only about 10 or 15% of the party. They are tolerated by the rest of the party purely for show -- like a decoration. The idea is to dangle a Lee, Kucinich, or McDermott out there, in hopes of keeping the antiwar & progressive types within the fold. Kucinich et al may be personally very sincere, but the rest of the party only tolerates them for its own purposes -- which are far from idealistic or progressive.