The Inner Nature of the Ruling Parties

Abstract

For the educated person from central Europe American parties are a riddle from the start. Even their names! I remember how hard I found it at the time when I first became interested in politics to make up my mind in favour of one of the two major American parties. I did not know anything about them other than their names. I liked both names equally well and therefore found the choice dreadfully difficult. While in every other country I found at least one party whose name was acceptable — the estrema sinistra, the radicaux or the extrême gauche, the Fortschrittspartei or even the Freisinnige Volkspartei⁴⁶ — I stood between the names of the American parties like Buridan’s Ass⁴⁷ between the two bundles of hay. I found ‘Democratic’ just as good as ‘Republican’, and I could not for the life of me discover which of the parties was the more ‘radical’ (it being a foregone conclusion that my sympathies would go to this one). I found that ‘Democrats’ could just as well be to the ‘left’ of ‘Republicans’ as ‘Republicans’ could be to the left of ‘Democrats’.