Talk:Democratic Party (United States)

Ideology

There are a lot of DP members who have far left and left-wing views. It should be added to "Factions" Ruhrob (talk) 20:40, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Please offer independent reliable sources that describe "far left" as a wing of the Democratic party. 331dot (talk) 21:32, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Oppose adding such a statement, as while the Progressive Caucus and self-described progressive members of the party are the most left-leaning, the Party is a big tent and there's no category (i.e. center-left, left-wing, far-left, etc.) for the Party as whole. JohnAdams1800 (talk) 03:16, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Absurd and unsourceable to use the term "far left" for any element of the Democratic Party. People like Bernie Sanders barely qualify as social democrats. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:27, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

I totally agree. I will provide several sources per point made.

Wiki defines "Far left" as : "The terms far-left and ultra-left are used for positions that are more radical, more strongly rejecting capitalism and mainstream representative democracy, instead advocating for a socialist society based on economic democracy and direct democracy, representing economic, political and social democracy" Article: Left-wing politics#:~:text=The terms far-left and,economic, political and social democracy.

Now, thats not a source, it's just using Wiki's own definition to match the issue. So let's take a dive at dictionary.com to see what "Far-left" means Dictionary.com says "The term far left is often used to refer to those who are considered to have more extreme, revolutionary views, such as those who espouse communism and socialism https://www.dictionary.com/e/leftright/.

Let's see if we have any prominent wings of the Democratic party that are revolutionary in nature, espouse Socialism, reject capitalism and support direct democracy. Let's go!

The United States has socialist members of congress. https://inthesetimes.com/article/democratic-socialism-dsa-aoc-bernie-sanders-congress

https://www.wsj.com/articles/socialists-are-no-strangers-to-congress-11546530927

https://rosselliotbarkan.com/p/the-three-factions-of-the-american

Not to mention, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, or Jamaal Bowman are all self-described socialist.

Illhan Omar strongly condemns the concentration of wealth and the failures of the capitalist system, more strongly rejecting capitalism https://ilhanomar.com/issue/economicjustice/

AOC strongly rejects capitalism (source 1); https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-aoc-capitalism-democratic-socialism-pursuit-of-profit-not-redeemable-2022-2

(source 2) https://fee.org/articles/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-says-she-opposes-capitalism-a-recently-taken-photo-suggests-otherwise/

So we can check "Socialism" off the list. But do we have any more examples from the definitions above? Lets check the "revolutionary views"

Bernie Sanders literally calls for a revolution: https://berniesanders.com/get-involved/our-revolution/

Wrote a book about political revolution for socialism : https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/nov/17/bernie-sanders-book-political-revolution-its-ok-to-be-angry-about-capitalism

Okay, but what about others? Let's see!

AOC calls for a political revolution in her campaign https://bronx.news12.com/n12primaries-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-calls-for-revolution-38452590

Specifically socialist revolution: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/10/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-new-establishment-ranking

Rashida Tlaib calls for revolutionary change in foreign policy https://www.pressherald.com/2023/11/15/commentary-why-palestinian-americans-believe-rep-rashida-tlaib-spoke-the-truth/

So it's clear this "Wing" of the party is both socialist, identify as political revolutionaries... but what about the other defintions? Let's go to "Economic democracy"

Under "Issues" and "Labour" AOCsupports Economic democracy https://www.ocasiocortez.com/issues

Rashida Tlaib supports economic democracy: https://tlaib.house.gov/posts/tlaib-barbara-lee-summer-lee-bowman-introduce-oligarch-act-to-tax-the-rich

Bernie: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/how-bernie-sanders-plans-bring-economic-democracy-united-states/

So, this wing of the party are self described socialist, identify as political revolutionaries, advocate for economic democracy and are more extreme than those elsewhere in the party- regardless of international standards- they do make up the far left in the United States Sufficient half (talk) 17:11, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Except that in the rest of the developed world, parties with the same ideology usually alternate in power with right-wing parties. Essentially they want to go back to America before the Reagan revolution (which is what people actually call it.[1]) And add universal health care which every other developed nation has. TFD (talk) 20:28, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Just because a person describes themselves as something doesn’t mean we can reliably describe them as that in an article. For example, Donald Trump describes himself as the victim of a political persecution but he isn’t called that on Wikipedia. 166.199.149.4 (talk) 16:38, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 December 2023

Request to add

under Democratic Party (United States)#Political positions. 223.25.74.34 (talk) 11:00, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

No, would take up too much space. GoodDay (talk) 05:19, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template.  Spintendo  22:44, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Recent edits

I've reverted a massive series of edits by Plumber that I think broadly are seriously problematic. A handful of major mistakes I've noticed:

1) Very broad characterizations of the Democratic Party ("Left-wing opposition", "right-wing opposition", "centrist triangulation" beginning in 1976, etc.)

2) Addition of unsourced, extremely contentious claims (the post Civil War Democratic Party being "right wing" until 1896, and then immediately "left-wing" from 1896 on, "Since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has generally positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues", "White backlash to a Black president combined with the lingering Great Recession led to a Republican landslide in the 2010 midterm elections.", etc)

I've reverted this wholesale, but I'm opening this up to discussion on what might be salvageable. Toa Nidhiki05 02:59, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion it's all a vast improvement from a disorganized page. If you are opposed to specific sentences you can change them without reverting the entire work then announcing this fait accompli to the talk page, which is highly inappropriate. Plumber (talk) 03:05, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Please don't accuse people of edit warring; per WP:BRD, I started this thread so the topic could be discussed. Instead, you immediately reverted back. I'm not going to revert you, but I'm disappointed you opted not to discuss instead. I'm not going to engage in an edit war and revert you again, but someone else might, and given the scale of the edit and the controversial and unsourced material you've added, they probably will. Again - your addition of claims here includes several that are patently incorrect, including regarding Jimmy Carter as a New Democrat, regarding pre-1896 Democrats as "right-wing", regarding pre-1932 Democrats as "left-wing" (even when they nominated progressive and even conservative nominees at the Presidential level), and claiming the 2010 election was due to racial backlash. These claims are not cited to sources. Those are just ones I immediately noticed. There are likely far, far more. Toa Nidhiki05 03:50, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I've provided citations for the two claims you disputed, thank you for pointing them out to me. If you have further concerns you can edit them sentence by sentence instead of mass-reverting. Plumber (talk) 04:13, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

No, they did not. Your source for "white backlash" as the cause of 2010 - a single paper - does not cite a page, nor does the paper at all make that claim on a single page. You have not provided any sources for your definitive "era" listings, or for your claims that the Democratic Party had a distinct right or left-wing identity in the eras claimed. What sources you have provided link to are frequently subpar, or are seemingly reliable sources where you didn't cite the page you are referencing; this is an absolute-no go. You have to cite what page content comes from. You've also provided no source to your claim that Jimmy Carter (and, by extension, Michael Dukakis), were New Democrats; this is likely impossible, as New Democrats began as a response to Reagan's win, and didn't really gain any influence until the Clinton years. I recommend reverting your changes to discuss them further.

Another example: you added a section noting Jimmy Carter lost in a landslide to "right-wing" Republican Ronald Reagan. However, neither source you provided appears to refer to him as "right-wing". This is characteristic of your edits, and I'm concerned you have added original research rather than taking what sources say 1:1. I'm not even counting the vast sections of other uncited changes.

Another bit of content you added - "Nancy Pelosi became the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives but refused left-wing demands to impeach Bush for lying to the country before the invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction". "Lying to the country" is an extremely strong statement that shouldn't be used in Wikivoice without extremely reliable sourcing. You have, instead, provided zero sources.

Another section you added "The next Southern Democratic presidents were more centrist than Johnson. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton both promised to reduce the power of the federal government and increase the power of the states." None of this is cited.

In a section on Jimmy Carter, you added "Carter privately admitted in his diaries that he was more sympathetic to conservative Democrats and Republicans than mainstream Democrats in Congress. Unlike most Democrats in Congress, Carter was opposed to universal health care during his presidency. Carter's inability to work well with Congress made him unpopular within his own party and Carter's presidency only lasted one term.". You cited this broadly to his entire diary without listing any pages for any claims. You can't do this. This isn't a valid way to cite sources.

There is a reason I reverted your entire edit - frankly, most of it is quite bad. It had blatant grammatical errors, frequently adds uncited or improperly cited claims (often these claims are inflammatory or extremely dubious), and is a downgrade over the existing page.

Toa Nidhiki05 04:25, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Removed the Saddam Hussein bit as it's not very relevant. Your assertions Ronald Reagan was not right-wing, there was no racist reaction to Barack Obama's elections are incorrect and do not justify mass reverts to edits made in good faith. If you have sources showing Reagan was a left-wing candidate in 1980 and there was no racism in the United States after 2008 then feel free to add them to the page instead of engaging in goal-shifting attacks. The page can always be improved, but reverting things en masse then crying wolf to the talk page is not the way Wikipedia works.--Plumber (talk) 04:42, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I would encourage you to engage in some introspection and constructive discussion here rather than accusing me of "goal-shifting" and "crying wolf". Toa Nidhiki05 04:45, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I thank you for pointing out three sentences which needed further citations. All of those have been edited with many different citations. Please do not engage in mass reversions of edits made in good faith again. --Plumber (talk) 04:51, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

You have not addressed or solved any of the complaints. Again, you cannot cite literally entire books. That's not how this works. And you have not even attempted to respond to or cite most of the stuff I mentioned. What you appear to be doing is making big claims, and then citing entire books to justify them - but it's impossible to verify the claims you make, because you've not cited where those claims were made. It seems to me like, given your earlier comment about obvious things like Reagan being right-wing or 2010 being due to racism, are a mix of original research (not allowed) and "I don't need to source this because it's obvious", when the claims in question are not obvious. We require claims to be backed by reliable sources here, especially contentious ones. I would encourage you to consider this before making additional edits. Toa Nidhiki05 04:55, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Plumber, I have gone ahead and re-reverted your extensive recent edits. Toa has raised detailed and substantive concerns about the chain of edits you made. Your response was to reinstate all your edits, make additional edits, and either minimize the problems Toa identified or claim to have fixed them all (which Toa strongly disputes). I hate to undo all of your efforts, and I have been known to make bold edits myself, but the way you are going about this isn't good for the encyclopedia. With respect, I invite you to work with Toa and other editors on the changes you think need to be made and make sure you source your edits thoroughly. MonMothma (talk) 05:16, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

You violated the three-revert rule and I warned you. You cannot make 13 reversions and then pretend you are engaged in proper Wikpedia etiquette. --Plumber (talk) 05:18, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

The three-revert rule does not strictly mean three reverts. The chain of edits MonMothma made, under WP:3RR, count as a single revert. See: "An editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page—whether involving the same or different material—within a 24-hour period. An edit or a series of consecutive edits that undoes or manually reverses other editors' actions—whether in whole or in part—counts as a revert". MonMothma did not revert 13 times - they made 13 edits in a row that gradually undid your changes. You've also falsely accused MonMothma of vandalism - this on top of accusing me of similar things earlier in the thread. I would seriously encourage you to read our policy on WP:CIVILITY. Toa Nidhiki05 05:21, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I am still waiting for historical evidence with citations to back up the mass reversion of edits made in good faith. --Plumber (talk) 05:34, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I reverted to the last stable version. I reviewed the above discussion and I'm at a loss understanding the objections. I would suggest you work them one at a time. Perhaps even file an RFC. Viriditas (talk) 05:35, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Can entire books be cited as sources, without listing a page number? You know the answer to this. Also, the last stable edit was prior to Plumber's edits, for what it's worth. Toa Nidhiki05 05:40, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Viriditas, with respect, could I invite you to take another look at the situation? If your intention is to restore the last stable version of the article, I'd invite you to revert back to revision # 1194378322 by RenewIR. The problem on this page right now is that User:Plumber is making massive edits, overriding other editors' (serious and substantive) concerns, engaging in battleground behavior, and making false accusations of vandalism. We need to get the article back to where it was before all of that started happening. Then we can collaborate on any changes that need to be made. MonMothma (talk) 05:42, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Done.[2] Viriditas (talk) 06:03, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, Viriditas. MonMothma (talk) 08:32, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I made good faith edits according to the Be Bold policy. My edits about the Democratic Party were reverted due to minor disagreements about Republican Party officials. Every time a point of dispute arose, the article was edited to provide more citations. Yet all the changes were reverted rather than the few sentences under discussion. Most of the data changed is the removal of pictures which have nothing to do with any objections stated. This is quite simply not how the Wikipedia editing process works and is highly irregular. If there is a NPOV objection, slight changes can be made to those sentences about Republican officials without deleting a vast amount of information with numerous citations about Democrats. --Plumber (talk) 07:26, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Just add them in one at a time and go from there. Viriditas (talk) 07:38, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Plumber, you mentioned the WP:BOLD editing guideline. I would draw your attention to the following words from that guideline: "Do not be upset if your bold edits get reverted. Of course, others here will edit what you write. Do not take it personally! They, like all of us, just wish to make Wikipedia as good an encyclopedia as it can possibly be".

I understand that you're upset right now, and I don't want to keep hammering away at you (nobody here is perfect), but I have to say that your own description of what's been going on with this article over the past 24 hours is off the mark. You made major, substantive edits, as you are completely entitled to do. Toa reverted you and posted detailed concerns about both the accuracy and the sourcing of your edits. (To be clear: Toa's concerns were not minor or localized concerns that could be fixed by changing a word here or a source there.) You reinstated your edits and made a series of additional edits, contending that you had resolved Toa's concerns. Toa communicated that no, the concerns were not resolved. I reverted you and politely asked that you be more collaborative. You reverted again and placed multiple warnings on my talk page falsely accusing me of vandalism. Now an administrator has had to get involved.

You can keep arguing, or you can reconsider your approach to the situation. I would encourage you to do the latter. Why not post something here on the talk page outlining what you think needs improvement about the structure and content of this article? Despite the recent unpleasantness, I stand willing to work with you to try to improve it. Without speaking for Toa, I believe he would as well. MonMothma (talk) 08:54, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I’m not an admin, but I would invite you to attract their attention by posting a neutrally worded RFC or noticeboard report. It will attract more eyes and input from the wider community. Viriditas (talk) 09:16, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't believe an RfC is needed at this time, since the dispute here is only between three editors and there has not been a protracted edit war. I am still hopeful that Plumber will respond to my substantiative criticism and engage in dialogue here. Toa Nidhiki05 14:02, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Intro

The Republican Party's intro has a link to this page. Therefore this page's intro should keep its link to the Republican Party page. I'm mentioning this, because somebody tried to change the link to point to the History of the Republican Party (United States) page. GoodDay (talk) 16:08, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree. If I see that link in the into, I'm fully expect it to lead to an article on the GOP as a whole, not a link to its history. That would be an WP:EASTEREGG to avoid. Zaathras (talk) 16:25, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

There is no reason for the two articles to be mirror images of each other. The contents of each article must stand on its own. TFD (talk) 23:01, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Political position

Why don't the American political parties have "political position" as a category in their info boxes? Like where it would say "center-left"? Almost all wiki pages about political parties in other countries have this category. 150.108.240.134 (talk) 22:34, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

It has been discussed before. Everyone has a different opinion on where various ideologies fit into the political spectrum. The articles already state party ideology in the info-box. There is no need to add where Wikipedia editors place these ideologies in the political spectrum. TFD (talk) 23:00, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

political position 2

I think its REALLY REALLY important for a political party to state their political position! the Democrats are centre-left and it needs to be stated just like the Republicans being centre-right/right-wing. or is it different over there in the states? cause almost every party here on Wikipedia has clearly stated their political position except maybe for the CCP but duhh thats expected. requesting the admins to take necessary actions. Credmaster 20 (talk) 07:45, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

This is an editorial discussion, Admins have no extra authority over the rest of us regular users when discussing editorial issues. Zaathras (talk) 13:52, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Can you define center left without referring to other positions in the political spectrum.

Also, is center left part of the center or the left, or is it midway between the two or does it just combine the two? TFD (talk) 21:26, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Center-left is defined here on Wikipedia. The entire first paragraph in the lead explains it without mentioning the word 'right', and the definition is supported with citations later in the article. Ray522 (talk) 00:22, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Your link begins, "Centre-left politics is the range of left-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre." That's a clear reference "to other positions in the political spectrum."

Can you define center left without referring to other positions in the political spectrum? TFD (talk) 04:36, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

My definition does not matter; that would be asking me to do original research. However, center-left is a compound word which requires understanding both parts of the word and that it is referencing a spectrum that is used in comparison. If the goalpost is now defining something on a spectrum without referencing other things on the spectrum, and the individual words that constitute the compound word, you will most likely never find a satisfactory answer. Ray522 (talk) 22:23, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No original research "does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards." Obviously we could not discuss article content without using editorial judgement. TFD (talk) 06:27, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Washington DC mayor 'note', in the infobox

It's been pointed out that the Washington DC mayor's wikinote, should not be included with the state governors and/or territorial governors in the infobox. GoodDay (talk) 23:53, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree, I removed it because the Mayor of Washington, DC is not considered a governor, as DC is the federal capital and not a state however it is considered a territory, albeit with different rules treatment than other US territories. Furthermore, I believe granting statehood to DC brings up a constitutional issue and can be controversial. Best to leave the Mayor of DC out of the list of governors of US states. Completely Random Guy (talk) 23:42, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Ideologies in Wikibox

The page currently has Democratic socialism as an ideology of the party, which I personally disagree with but I understand that Wikipedia:No original research exists for a reason and that the term is much more frequently used in American discourse than Social democracy, which had previously been included in the wikibox previously.

However, the sources cited for the former ideology largely use the term Progressivism to describe the left flank of the Democratic Party and never mention either "social democracy" or "democratic socialism."

The other source from the New Yorker uses both of the latter terms, claiming that while Bernie Sanders calls himself a "democratic socialist," he would be more reasonably described as a "social democrat." This could be used as evidence for the party having a social democratic faction around Bernie Sanders but more sources should probably be necessary for such a high-profile page.

So, either there needs to be citations to multiple sources that actually characterize the party as having a significant 'democratic socialist' faction, as having a significant 'social democratic' faction or of both.

Alternatively, the labels "democratic socialism" or "social democracy" could be removed from the ideology section of the page entirely because "progressivism" already covers, both in many sources and by self-identification, most of the party members/politicians that could be classified as either or both of the former two categories.

Thoughts? Enderdragonpig (talk) 23:54, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

I've reverted the infobox back to "social democracy" for the time being while this is discussed. I do not support "democratic socialism" being in the infobox and would agree with stripping social democracy as a whole. Neither are terms commonly associated with the Democratic Party, while progressivism is. EndlessCoffee54 (talk) 01:32, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

The socialist/democratic socialist/social democratic distinction is arbitrary and depends on the writer. Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin for example were Social Democrats, while Tony Blair is a democatic socialist.

My concern is that these are not ideologies of the Democratic Party and the party itself has three factions: progressives, blue dogs and New Liberals. Their main proponents are Sanders, Manchin and HIllary Clinton respectively. But Sanders is not actually influential in the progressive caucus. Something like four out of eighty (and probably less) backed him when he ran for president. TFD (talk) 05:49, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Blue Dog/conservative Democrats don't even count as a faction any more, frankly. There's all of 10 of them in the house, or all of 5%, compared to 46% that are part of the CPC and 46% that are New Democrats. There are more Democrats in the Forethought Caucus than in the Blue Dog Coalition. Toa Nidhiki05 15:38, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Israel relations

The Democratic Party is much less supportive towards Israel than the Republicans. דולב חולב (talk) 03:14, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

International affiliation

But why aren’t you adding the Progressive Alliance as an international affiliation? דולב חולב (talk) 03:23, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Because it isn't. Zaathras (talk) 03:45, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Agree. TFD (talk) 04:05, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

At this point this question should just be added to the infobox and all discussions preemptively closed. Toa Nidhiki05 18:42, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

I know this has been discussed. But on the Democratic Party page, it says we can't use the PA's page as a source to include it in the infobox but the IDU's page is used as a source on the Republican Party's page. I feel like they should have the same standards. GamerKlim9716 (talk) 21:00, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

The U.S. GOP is a signatory to the International Democracy Union's founding. Apples and oranges. Zaathras (talk) 21:11, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

That's according to the IDU's website, just like according to the PA's website, the Democratic Party is a founding member. However, we're allowed to use the IDU's website as a source but not allowed to use the PA's site as a source. I'm not being sarcastic. I have autism and have comprehension issues so I'm sorry for being confused. GamerKlim9716 (talk) 22:51, 7 April 2024 (UTC)