The difference between Republicans and Democrats is that the Republicans are cultists, and the Democrats are careerists. The first are true believers, which can be admirable if what they believe in is true and noble, but it becomes cult-like when what they believe is fundamentally delusional. And what they believe is a kind of crude Ayn Randism, which merges with a traditional Calvinist scorn of the poor with a fear of big government. If they are not Christian fundamentalists, they are market fundamentalists, and in many cases they are both. Neither is true or noble. If there are any Republicans who actually try to engage with Reality outside the delusional bubble, they are primaried out of office. You don’t have a career as a Republican unless you are an unquestioning true believer in party-approved fundamentalist values. There’s no room for dissent.
So how to explain Donald Trump? Clearly, he is not a fundamentalist about anything, and if he is a cult member he's in the cult of his own personality. He is repugnant to orthodox conservative cultists. He has, however, been accepted as a useful fool by Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, etc., who will support him so long as he doesn't get in the way of their implementing their cultish agenda to dismantle entitlement programs and reduce taxes as far as they can. Trump has been accepted by white people on the religious right and others with traditional values as someone whom they identify as sharing in their being despised by the power establishment. The rest of Trump's support comes from Americans who truly are deplorable–the racist, substance-abusing wife beaters who blame everyone but themselves for the mess they've made of their lives, and see Trump as a kindred spirit who managed some how to make good.
To be successful, Democrat careerists don’t have to believe in anything except a fuzzy concoction of cosmopolitan platitudes. There are some liberal orthodoxies, but there’s room for dissent, and there are no strict dogmas about economic policy. There are many Democrats who are borderline market fundamentalists in a neoliberal key, which makes them kissing cousins with the kind of Ayn Rand Libertarianism that has metastasized in the GOP. But there are still a few New Deal-style social democrats, who though marginalized, might be playing a bigger role in the next decade.
Democrat careerists don’t despise the poor the way Republicans do, but they don’t really care about them either, except to the degree that the poor can bring some kind of pressure to bear on them that jeopardizes their careers. But since the poor are disorganized and don't vote, that rarely happens, and so Democrats cave to the pressures exerted on them by people who are rich and organized. They believe only in advancing their own careers, and that means that they put their finger to the wind, and vote rightward when their careers, i.e., their campaign funding, depends on it.
Since there is no cultish purity metric that governs Democrats or is likely to be used to primary them out of office, they are more vulnerable to pressures exerted by Reality. So they will vote Leftward when it becomes a 'thing', and there's an outside chance that it might if the Republican Party continues on its current self-destructive path. So while I no longer identify as a Democrat, I nevertheless think that as bad as most Democrats are, the country is better served when they are in the majority. There are a few, sane, thoughtful grownups among them, and I can think of no Republican on the national scene whom I would describe that way. Anyone who is decent has been primaried out, or quit.
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