Is our party's strength growing or shrinking ?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Growing
	0 (0%)
	Shrinking
	4 (100%)
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[onehandle]

1. Shrinking until January 2017. nt

[Man from Pickens]

3. At least

my fear is that no lessons will be learned, no realities confronted, except for a brief period lasting until the new Congress gets sworn in, and then it will be business as usual from there - none of which will help to produce a good outcome in 2 years from now.

[Thinkingabout]

2. The voters are shrinking.

[Old Nick]

4. Yes

[Bandit]

5. People don't wish to register as Democrats or Republicans for that matter

Most new voters registered as Independent or undeclared. Congress has a very low approval rate and that is for both Parties deserving or not. The Democratic Party is shrinking and I can fully understand why.

[deutsey]

6. I have definitely watched it shrink throughout my life

I was born in the year of LBJ's landslide victory; one of my earliest memories, unfortunately, is of RFK's funeral; I was energized by Carter's election in '76 when I was 12; and throughout my adult life, I've seen the party's strength to fight for my interests (working class/middle class) steadily go downhill.

[BillZBubb]

7. Definitely shrinking--and at an astounding rate.

The Democrats have become the Washington Generals to the republicans' Harlem Globetrotters.

The main culprit is the massive advantage pro-corporate policy has in getting money to fund campaigns and control the media. The republicans dominate in that area. To try to stay close in funding, the Democrats have moved far away from their traditional base. The Democrats have no means to stay close in media content.

The republicans, through the media, control the issues over which elections are contested. They have massive ad campaigns focused on their defined issues. The Democrats play defense with less resources and with a watered down message that is basically "we're not as bad as the republicans".

There simply is no urgent reason for voters to support the Democrats. Note: people here will disagree with my statement. They will argue climate change is urgent, the Supreme Court is urgent, defending the ACA is urgent, preventing changes to Social Security and Medicare is urgent, etc.

To that I say, yes to us politically involved people they are very urgent, but the vast majority of people aren't like us. Their sense of urgency is in other areas that the Democrats have failed to address (a lot of times because of republican obstructionism, but a lot of times because of fear of losing corporate funding).

[Bluenorthwest]

8. Politically a Party's power will wax and wane both by nature and by design of government

As with most other things, this is both good and bad. It is also a constant.

[BillZBubb]

9. I wonder if the Federalists and Whigs said that as their party declined?

[woo me with science]

10. We don't have a democracy anymore.

We have no power within the party system of a democracy, because we don't even have a democracy anymore. That's what the recent Princeton study showed.

Gridlocked democracy is an illusion carefully sustained through propaganda to keep Americans from figuring out that we have experienced a corporate coup in this country. We don't have democracy anymore; citizens have virtually NO impact on policy anymore, because it is purchased and driven by economic elites. We have united oligarchy, both parties purchased and working toward the same predatory corporate agenda regardless of what the people want.

Corporate money floods Washington on both sides.

Our form of government itself has changed, all theater and propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding.

US Is an Oligarchy Not a Democracy, says Scientific Study
http://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-us-is-an-oligarchy-2014-4
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024819356

[KG]

11. Damn near turtle-ing