Democratic Party United States

"The Democratic Party has a long history of opposition to the undue concentration of wealth and economic power."

"We need a comprehensive national health insurance system with universal and mandatory coverage. Such a national health insurance system should be financed by a combination of employer-employee shared payroll taxes and general tax revenues."

"The Democratic Party's strong commitment to environmental quality is based on its conviction that environmental protection is not simply an aesthetic goal, but is necessary to achieve a more just society. Cleaning up air and water supplies and controlling the proliferation of dangerous chemicals is a necessary part of a successful national health program. Protecting the worker from workplace hazards is a key element of our full employment program. Occupational disease and death must not be the price of a weekly wage."

"The Democratic Party will oppose any effort to tamper with the Social Security system by cutting or taxing benefits as a violation of the contract the American government has made with its people."

"The Democratic Party must continue to be as environmentally progressive in the future as it has been in the past. Progress in environmental quality—a major achievement of the 1970s—must continue in the 1980s."

"For the economy, the Democratic Party is committed to economic growth, prosperity, and jobs. For the individual, we are committed to justice, decency, and opportunity. For the nation, we are committed to peace, strength, and freedom."

"We are the Party of American values—the worth of every human being; the striving toward excellence; the freedom to innovate; the inviolability of law; the sharing of sacrifice; the struggle toward justice; the pursuit of happiness. We are the Party of American progress—the calling to explore; the challenge to invent; the imperative to improve; the importance of courage; the perennial need for fresh thinking, sharp minds, and ambitious goals. We are the Party of American strength—the security of our defenses; the power of our moral values; the necessity of diplomacy; the pursuit of peace; the imperative of survival. We are the Party of American vision—the trustees of a better future. This platform is our road map toward that future."

"Reaganomics is based on the theory that blanket-tax cuts for business and the rich would turn directly into higher productivity that private investors and industry would use the money saved to restore our edge in innovation and competitiveness."

"[T]he Reagan Administration has virtually wished away the role of government. When it comes to the economy, its view is that the government that governs best is one that governs not at all. A Democratic Administration must answer this challenge reaffirming the principle that government must both "provide for the common defense" and "promote the general welfare" as coequal responsibilities under the Constitution. If the Democratic Party can succeed in correcting the present imbalance, it will reverse the cycle of pain and despair, and recapture the initiative in the area of social and economic progress."

"Wee believe that the time has come for America to take charge once again of its economic future, to reverse seven years of "voodoo economics," "trickle down" policies, fiscal irresponsibility, and economic violence against poor and working people that have converted this proud country into the world's largest debtor nation, mortgaged our children's future by tripling our national debt, placed home ownership out of reach for most young families, permitted the rise of poverty and homelessness on the streets of America, reduced the buying power of working men and women, and witnessed the decline of our industrial, natural resource and mining base, the unending tragedy of family farm foreclosures, an unhealthy dependence on foreign energy and foreign capital, and the increasing foreign ownership of our land and natural resources."

"The Democratic Party in Convention assembled and united, the Party of hope and change and fairness for all, hereby declares its readiness to end the stalemate in Washington by challenging, encouraging and inviting the American people—challenging them to do their patriotic best to meet their community responsibilities, encouraging them to protect and preserve their families, our most precious assets, and inviting them to join with us in leading the land we love to a brighter and still greater future of opportunity and justice for all."

"The Revolution of 1992 is about a radical change in the way government operates—not the Republican proposition that government has no role, nor the old notion that there's a program for every problem, but a shift to a more efficient, flexible and results-oriented government that improves services, expands choices, and empowers citizens and communities to change our country from the bottom up. We believe in an activist government, but it must work in a different, more responsive way."

"Governments don't raise children, people do. People who bring children into this world have a responsibility to care for them and give them values, motivation and discipline. Children should not have children. We need a national crackdown on deadbeat parents, an effective system of child support enforcement nationwide, and a systematic effort to establish paternity for every child."

"Welfare should be a second chance, not a way of life. We want to break the cycle of welfare by adhering to two simple principles: no one who is able to work can stay on welfare forever, and no one who works should live in poverty. We will continue to help those who cannot help themselves. We will offer people on welfare a new social contract. We'll invest in education and job training, and provide the child care and health care they need to go to work and achieve long-term self- sufficiency. We will give them the help they need to make the transition from welfare to work, and require people who can work to go to work within two years in available jobs either in the private sector or in community service to meet unmet needs."

"As the party of inclusion, we take special pride in our country's emergence as the world's largest and most successful multiethnic, multiracial republic. We condemn antisemitism, racism, homophobia, bigotry and negative stereotyping of all kinds. We must help all Americans understand the diversity of our cultural heritage. But it is also essential that we preserve and pass on to our children the common elements that hold this mosaic together as we work to make our country a land of freedom and opportunity for all."

"To empower America's communities, Democrats pledge to restore government as the upholder of basic law and order for crime-ravaged communities. The simplest and most direct way to restore order in our cities is to put more police on the streets."

"The United States must be prepared to use military force decisively when necessary to defend our vital interests. The burdens of collective security in a new era must be shared fairly, and we should encourage multilateral peacekeeping through the United Nations and other international efforts."

"The Democratic Party deplores the increasing concentration of economic power in fewer and fewer hands. ...The Democratic Administration should pledge itself to combat factors which tend to concentrate wealth and stimulate higher prices. To this end, the federal government should: Develop programs to spread economic growth among the workers, farmers and businessmen; Help make parts of the economy more efficient such as medical care—where wasteful and inefficient practices now increase prices;; Step up anti-trust action to help competition, with particular regard to laws and enforcement curbing conglomerate mergers which swallow up efficient small business and feed the power of corporate giants..."

"I want a situation more like the Democrats and the Republicans in the US. People don't even question for a single moment that the Democrats are pro-business party."

"The G20 bilateral arrived, and during the usual media mayhem at the start. [...] With the press gone, Xi said this is the most important bilateral relationship in the world. He said that some (unnamed) political figures in the United States were making erroneous judgments by calling for a new cold war, this time between China and the United States. Whether Xi meant to finger the Democrats, or some of us sitting on the US side of the table, I don't know, but Trump immediately assumed Xi meant the Democrats. Trump said approvingly that there was great hostility among the Democrats. He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming US presidential election, alluding to China's economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he'd win. He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. I would print Trump's exact words, but the government's prepublication review process has decided otherwise."

"All that they seem to say is 'nigger, nigger, nigger'."

"They do not object to negroes voting on account of ignorance, but on account of color... If every negro in Mississippi was a class graduate of Harvard, and had been elected class orator ... he would not be as well fitted to exercise the rights of suffrage as the Anglo-Saxon farm laborer."

"It was disheartening to imagine the next two years with a Republican-controlled House and Senate. The political battles would be even harder, and the Administration would be on the defensive to keep intact the gains already made for the country. With Republican leadership calling the shots, the Congress would likely demonstrate the accuracy of Lyndon Johnson’s aphorism: “Democrats legislate; Republicans investigate.”"

"Under the Roosevelt administration, the Democratic tradition of Jefferson, Jackson and Wilson were still being practiced, while the opposition was all of the same kidney – whether you called them Federalists, Whigs or Republicans. The Federalists sponsored the Sedition Act of 1798, which made it a felony to “write, print, utter or publish ... any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent ... to bring them ... into contempt or disrepute.” The Whigs were the high-tariff boys and their successors, the Republicans, were champions of big business and the trickle-down theory of economics-which claimed that when the rich get richer, some of their wealth rubs off on the poor.”"

"A final factor in the 1952 election was the dissatisfaction of many southern Democrats. They were anti-Truman because of the Tidelands Bill, his civil-rights program and because of the long tenure of the party in office. Forgotten for the moment was the record of a political party that had returned the nation from the valley of despair into which it had fallen in the great depression. Forgotten was the great increase in living standards for all groups. Forgotten too was the inspiring leadership that had piloted our nation in its war for survival and which had provided the spark for moral international leadership."

"We had occupied the presidency for a longer period of time in our history than the combined terms of all our opponents – the Federalists, Whigs and Republicans – put together. Why? Because the American people believe in the fundamental principles of the Democratic Party as originally enunciated by Thomas Jefferson, and later by his followers, including Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Cleveland, Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. Underlying their philosophy was a basic concern for the advancement of the freedom, security and living standards of all Americans. In coming elections, the Democratic Party must vigorously lay before the country its fundamental principles as well as its great recent record. It must also be alert to the misdoings and unfulfilled “common-man” promises of the Republicans, as well as partisan reversals of sound Democratic measures heretofore enacted. These are the rallying points about which we Democrats must unite in order to restore our party to rule."

"Well, they’re going to elect that Superman Hoover, and he’s going to have some trouble. He’s going to have to spend money, but it won’t be enough. Then the Democrats will come in. But they don’t know anything about money."

"The wealthy slaveholders who controlled the federal government. Democrats acting on their behalf insisted that America's primary principle was the constitution's protection of property, and they pushed legislation to let planters monopolize the country's resources at the expense of the working."

"The party which is humorously called the Douglas Democracy no more recognizes the rights declared by the Declaration of Independence to be inalienable than does the party of the administration. Its leader repudiates the theory that the Constitution establishes slavery, but he does not perceive in it, or in the circumstances of its adoption, or in the expressed sentiments and actions of its framers, any reason to suppose that it favors liberty more than slavery. He leaves all human rights at the mercy of a majority, and insists that the Constitution does the same."

"This is a White Man's Government! This is a White Man's Country! Let the White Man Rule!"

"Each colored voter of the state should say in scripture phrase, 'may my hand forget its cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth' if ever I raise my voice or give my vote to the nominee of the Democratic Party."

"Neither West Point nor the Democratic Party have been good schools in which to learn justice and fair play to the negro."

"I knew that however bad the Republican party was, the Democratic party was much worse. The elements of which the Republican party was composed gave better ground for the ultimate hope of the success of the colored man's cause than those of the Democratic party."

"It is not true that the Republican party has not endeavored to protect the negro in his right to vote. The whole moral power of the party has been, from first to last, on the side of justice to the negro; and it has only been baffled, in its efforts to protect the negro in his vote, by the Democratic party."

"No, sir, th' dimmycratic party ain't on speakin' terms with itsilf. Whin ye see two men with white neckties go into a sthreet car an' set in opposite corners while wan mutthers Thraiter an' th' other hisses Miscreent ye can bet they're two dimmycratic leaders thryin' to reunite th' gran' ol' party."

"In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class, and all those who desired the restoration of white supremacy."

"The Democratic Party, whatever that is, lacks a vision or an ideology. But many people have said this. Why? That is because it is a conglomeration of mutually exclusive parts. It contains a large part of the American working class, which has suffered greatly since the Great Recession began. But it also contains a lot of Wall Street people and well-to-do people, and new technologists. What policies is going to unite these people? It’s hard to find a unifying theme among them, other than they don’t want the Republicans in power. Now, that often gets you fairly far, but it doesn't allow you to govern very effectively."

"I am opposed to it under any and all circumstances, and in our convention urged our party not to commit themselves at all upon the subject."

"It is a sad place, young man, for you to put your young life into. It is to me far more like a graveyard than like a camp for the living. Look at it! It is billowed all over with the graves of dead issues, of buried opinions, of exploded theories, of disgraced doctrines... There towers to the sky a monument of four million pairs of human fetters taken from the arms of slaves, and I read on its little headstone this: 'Sacred to the memory of Human Slavery.' For forty years of its infamous life the Democratic Party taught that it was divine; God's institution. They defended it, they stood around it, they followed it to its grave as a mourner. But here it lies, dead by the hand of Abraham Lincoln; dead by the power of the Republican Party, dead by the justice of Almighty God. Don't camp there, young man. That is no place in which to put your young life. Come out, and come over into this camp of liberty, of order, of law, of justice, of freedom, of all that is glorious under these night stars."

"Every Democrat must be on the alert on the day of Election to see that negroes under age do not vote and that those who are properly entitled to vote do not repeat, and if they should discover that squads should leave the precincts and go in the direction of another precinct, they must follow them and challenge their vote at the next precinct... Every Democrat must feel honor bound to control the vote of at least one Negro, by intimidation, purchase, keeping him away, or as each individual may determine."

"Many participants in the anti-war movement, people who went to rallies or gave money or were involved in some other way, were Democrats, and once they saw Democrats in power they felt the job was done, and that a Democratic-led government would end the war without such a need for outside pressure... Many leaders of the anti-war movement were Democrats and were not well positioned or strongly inclined to battle with those Democrats in government who were continuing the war... The anti-war movement was too closely tied to the Democratic Party and that it would've been better to have more of an independent identity."

"One thing has struck me as a bit queer. During my two terms of office, the whole Democratic press, and the morbidly honest and 'reformatory' portion of the Republican press, thought it horrible to keep U.S. troops stationed in the southern states, and when they were called upon to protect the lives of negroes, as much citizens under the constitution as if their skins were white, the country was scarcely large enough to hold the sound of indignation belched forth by them for some years. Now, however, there is no hesitation about exhausting the whole power of the government to suppress a strike on the slightest intimation that danger threatens."

"Now, the Democrats have a different plan. The Democrats say that, 'If you have health insurance, we're going to make it better. If you don't have health insurance, we going to provide it to you. If you can’t afford health insurance, then we'll help you afford health insurance'. So America gets to decide. Do you want the Democratic plan, or do you want the Republican plan? Remember, the Republican plan. 'Don't get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly'."

"For a generation, ‘the South,’ slavery and the Democratic party have been different expression of the same political element."

"The antiwar movement aspired to create a transgressive politics that challenged the institutions that generate war and imperialism. Yet, because it depended so heavily on the party in the street to mobilize support, it found itself caught up in the institutional, party-driven system that many activists saw as the cause of the problems that it mobilized to solve. In 2001, the antiwar movement began with an eye toward becoming an independent political force, yet it lived in the shadow of the Democratic Party. The Democrats and the antiwar movement struck a useful alliance from 2003 to 2006. The antiwar movement helped to demonstrate grassroots support for a key party issue and the party helped to provide activists, resources, and legitimacy for the movement. By early 2009, however, it was abundantly clear that Democrats were no longer interested in this alliance. Abandonment by the Democrats gave the movement the independence it desired, but also stripped it of its capacity for political influence. While Obama's election was heralded as a victory for the antiwar movement, Obama’s election, in fact, thwarted the ability of the movement to achieve critical mass."

"[T]he Democratic Party would have been crippled in the old days without the support of the segregationist South."

"The Democratic Party and its liberal allies decry the consolidation of absolute power by the Trump White House, the repeated constitutional violations, the flagrant corruption and the deformation of federal agencies— including the Justice Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — into attack dogs to persecute Trump’s opponents and dissidents. It warns that time is running out. But at the same time, it steadfastly refuses to call for mass mobilizations that can disrupt the machinery of commerce and state. It treats the handful of Democratic Party politicians who address social inequality and abuses by the billionaire class — including Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani — as lepers. It blithely ignores the concerns and demands of ordinary Democratic Party voters reducing them to disposable props at rallies, town halls and conventions."

"When we had finished this we discussed the English Labor program recently announced at Nottingham. Much to my surprise, he said he did not disagree with it further than the minimum wage which he confessed to know little about and he had not thought of any visible way by which it could be maintained. We discussed the trend of liberal opinion in the world and came to the conclusion that the wise thing to do was to lead the movement intelligently and sympathetically and not allow the ignoble element to run away with the situation as they had done in Russia. He spoke of the necessity of forming a new political party in order to achieve these ends. He did not believe the Democratic Party could be used as an instrument to go as far as it would be needful to go and largely because of the reactionary element in the South. I disagreed with him. I thought it would be unwise to attempt the building of a new party without first seeing whether the Democratic Party could be forced into the direction we thought advisable. I did not believe the people of the South would sustain the reactionary element provided the President came out strongly enough against them. I do not know whether I convinced him but at least he stopped arguing against my opinion. Again let me say that the President has started so actively on the liberal road that I find myself, instead of leading as I always did at first, rather in the rear and holding him back. He turned to me and said almost pathetically, “that is a big program for a tired old man to think of undertaking.”"

"To those who say, 'My friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights', I say to them we are 172 years late. To those who say? To those who say that, 'this civil-rights program is an infringement on states' rights'? I say this, The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights."

"Those historians who did not simply regard the Democratic party as having no history before Wilson tended to draw their cues from the largely progressive Republican sources which they employed. Fortunately, a number of studies of the congressional Democrats have appeared in recent years to correct this stereotype. The investigations of Senate voting conducted by Howard Allen and Jerome Clubb clearly reveal the more consistent support for reform measures provided by Democratic, rather than Republican, members. David A. Sarasohn argues convincingly that, from 1905 at least, the Democrats were consistently the more progressive party, both in Congress and in their national candidates and platforms, and that the electoral victory of 1912 was not the result of a lucky windfall, in the shape of a Republican split, but the logical outcome of their growing identification with progressive policies over the preceding seven or eight years. Elizabeth Sanders’s account of agrarian politics, Roots of Reform, which is essentially a congressional history of the Democratic party during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, establishes its progressive credentials still more emphatically."