Tendencies Toward Corruption Within Each of the Four Major U.S. Parties
This article doesn’t discuss particular personalities in the parties. It is about overall tendencies of each party and the policies and values they typically hold.
Thanks for reading. Here’s a related post of political humor, Equal Opportunity Jabber.
Repeat of Quadrants Content
This section repeats the writing in the quadrants, for any who have difficulty reading in that format. Groups are presented in order of political party size.
Auth-left Quadrant
When the Democrats’ policies fail to generate popular support, they inevitably chalk it up to “poor messaging.” The problem, however, is not that they lack a “pithy,” “bumper sticker worthy” marketing message for their programs. The problem is what they are trying to sell: excessive regulation that drives up prices and discourages innovation; social welfare policies that largely benefit the wealthy and harm those they are supposed to help; and crony-capitalist subsidies for politically favored constituencies. (Margolis, 2022, para. 13)
The party averages look like this…Republican Congressional average corruption ratio: 1 : 30.2. Democrat Congressional average corruption ratio: 1 : 29.2.… On the local level (e.g. Governors, Mayors, State Legislation, Assembly) The Dems were worse than the GOP: 341 to 207…. (Shelby, n.d.)
Auth-right Quadrant
Yuen Yuen Ang is a professor of political economy at Johns Hopkins….Access money refers to funneling cash to government officials in return for favors.
We see that throughout the lifecycles of major capitalist economies….the 2008 U.S. crisis….in the 19th century alone America had multiple financial panics linked to corruption, speculation, and distortions in the economy. So my argument is that access money corruption and capitalism has actually gone hand in hand. But this is a reality that many people do not wish to confront, because we like to hear the happy story. We like to hear that liberal capitalism is all about progress, is all about making people richer and richer, governance better and better, and eradicating corruption. And it's a bit hard for some people to confront the historical reality. (Klein, 2023, 28:12)
The Executive Branch….I gathered and scored the data from the same source, same system, and the outcome looks like this…Executive Republican Administration corruption points: 465. Executive Democrat Administration corruption points: 34.… Nearly a 14:1 ratio. (Shelby, n.d.)
Lib-right Quadrant
New Hampshire party chair Jilletta Jarvis described her decision in early June to create a second Libertarian Party in New Hampshire.
“I will not chair a party that knowingly and has now affirmatively chosen to stay affiliated with the toxic garbage that was being spewed by the New Hampshire party and similar bad actors in other states,” he said. He also cited “the violent threats emanating from these people, and the deliberate destruction of the party’s ability to appeal to voters and win elections.”…The story includes alleged racism and threats of violence (but elusive examples), a highly governed disaffiliation process….the state party did too little to oppose restrictions and champion that liberty-focused legislation. (Timmins, 2021, para. 3-6)
Lib-left (Green) Quadrant
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.
–John Kenneth Galbraith
The past 30 years have been characterized by exchanging what worked for what sounds good.
–Thomas Sowell
Luxury beliefs: Ideas such as defund the police clash with the reality that people in ethnic-minority neighborhoods definitely want more policing, not less (Henderson, 2024).
Equity: Seemingly we will reach this goal when the corporate overlords and governments have numbers of ethnic minorities that match their representation in the population, no matter whether the overall socioeconomic position of the majority of that ethnic group has improved.
References
Klein, E. (2023, January 24). There’s been a revolution in how China is governed. https://podcasts.apple.com/it/podcast/theres-been-a-revolution-in-how-china-is-governed/
Henderson, R. (2024). Troubled: A memoir of foster care, family, and social class. Simon & Schuster.
Shelby, A. (n.d.). Why are Democrats so incredibly corrupt? https://www.quora.com/Why-are-Democrats-so-incredibly-corrupt
Timmins, A. (2021, June 22). The unraveling of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire. https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2021/06/22/the-unraveling-of-the-libertarian-party-of-new-hampshire/