October202011

Democrats vs. Republicans: who has a more informative website?

I have a project that is to compare Democratic ideals with Republican ideals. So what was the first thing I did? I went to their individual websites which are:

and

Click on those. look around. The Democrat page opens up and you see tabs that say “who we are” and “what we stand for” and has a flipping banner that talks about the American Jobs Act and the end of DADT. when you scroll down, you see a sticker about how you can get involved in the 2012 election, another that says “the real cost of photo ID laws” and another that says “see progress in your area”

Now look at the GOP front page. You may notice that you are automatically redirected to a site called Debt End Tour, which solely blames obama and the liberal media for everything going wrong at the moment, followed by a way you can donate to the Republican National Party. You have to scroll all the way down to click on a link that says “continue to GOP.com”. On that site, the first thing that caught my eye was the “Obama debt watch” which showed how much debt had been wracked up. The next thing I noticed was a link to “RNC women”, so I clicked on that. All I can say is that I am happy it wasn’t pink.

The light blue layout shows you how you can get involved, and includes 96 testimonials about why some women are proud to be Republican Women.

I then noticed another widget that led you to RNClatinos.org, a recently launched Republican National Party Website aimed at the latino population. So I went there, hoping to find what they stand for. Obviously, since I do not read spanish well, that didn’t help either.

So maybe I’m jumping the gun here, but I’m going to say this:

The Republicans don’t really want you to know what they stand for. I went through 4 separate Republican National Party websites, and not one of them gave me the lowdown about where they stood on any subject. Most of it was Anti-Obama rhetoric. It was a bit like navigating a PETA website. it kept redirecting you to bright colors and big text, but at the end, you come out not knowing any more then when you entered and feeling a bit odd, like you’re about to be indoctrinated into a cult.

The Democrat website, however, was quite different. I could find the information I needed and wanted quickly. It was easy to navigate, didn’t redirect you asking for money to defund a current politician, and it was inclusive. The Republican national party had three separate websites and weren’t inclusive at all about the African American population, the disabled population, or any other group. There is an entire tab on the Democrats website dedicated to every minority and how current things that are happening in politics effect them and how they can get involved.

This was frustrating, as I am sure it is for GOP-ers who want to know what is going on with their party. Propaganda doesn’t help your cause, it only harms it. Take a lesson from the Democrats, GOP. An easily navigable site might actually get you somewhere.

GOP Democrats Politics 2012 Obama 

September142011

First trans member on DNC committee

gaywrites:

For the first time, the Democratic National Committee has elected a transgender person to be a member of its executive committee.

Babs Casbar Siperstein of Edison, New Jersey was named to the committee this weekend. In 2009 she became the first out trans person on the DNC.

She has worked hard for transgender visibility and interests within the party, according to Blue Jersey. When she first became active, she told the blog in a recent interview, “all [party members] knew about ‘trans’ was baby drag queens. They didn’t know. So they needed to be educated. It’s 100% better now. Rather than confront or turn people off I tried to engage in a positive way.” There has been progress; in 2009 the DNC added gender identity to its nondiscrimination policy.

Awesome awesome awesome. 

lgbtq news politics transgender trans democrats 

September22011

An Idea Too Obvious, Nay Too Reasonable To Be Taken Seriously

loathliness:

American voters are symbolically conservative but operationally liberal…When asked about specific government programs and specific social goals, the American public generally wants the government to do more, spend more, and redistribute more. But at the same time, citizens are considerably more likely to identify themselves as conservatives than as liberals. The American public, in other words, generally wants more government-based solutions to social problems, but overwhelmingly identifies with the ideological label that rejects those solutions.

Politicians know this fact to be true. The GOP talks and talks ad nauseum about reducing spending, but cannot articulate any spending cuts of substance they would actually make if they could. This is precisely because they know that voters like the idea of small government in principle, but love individual government programs in practice. 

politics policy gop republicans democrats obama news opinion 

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