Democratic Party (United States)

I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat. ~ Will Rogers

The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party.

Quotes

When Democrats rush up to me at events and insist that we live in the worst of political times, that a creeping fascism is closing its grip around our throats, I may mention the internment of Japanese Americans under FDR, the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams, or a hundred years of lynching under several dozen administrations as having been possibly worse, and suggest we all take a deep breath. ~ Barack Obama

You've got to be optimist to be a Democrat, and you've got to be a humorist to stay one. ~ Will Rogers

• The Democratic party is a vast body of confusion, sprawling between the Bay of Disorder and the dreaded Chaotic Pics. It is bounded on the North by the United Auto Workers and on the South by the Ku Klux Klan. … The Democratic Party was born in 1932. It gave the country four deals. These were the New Deal; the Fair Deal, which was the New Deal with hardened arteries; the New Frontier, which was the New Deal with a face lift; and the Great Society, which was the New Deal with hardened arteries, a fallen face lift and a Vietnamese accent. … The Democratic Party is a party of principle. It will sacrifice anybody to remain the principal party of the United States. … Democratic Party's favorite hobbies are winning, Texas and exhaustion. … What would happen to the Democratic Party if they were to lose the election this year? The same thing that happened to it the last time it lost. It would sit in the wings until the Republican Party wiped itself out again and the return with the New Deal. As long as nobody cuts the cards, it can go on forever.
  • Russell Baker, "Observer: The Democrats in a Nutshell", The New York Times (22 August 1968) Baker's predictions came true with appearance of the New Covenant and the New New Deal.

• I was always raised to think that Republicans were about limited government, about individual liberty, about fiscal responsibility, about balanced budgets, about a wariness of military adventures abroad, about responsible encouragement to business. There's a whole list of things I thought the Republican Party was all about, and these guys that presently occupy the White House, are categorically against every single one of those things. So if they're Republicans, I'm not. But I'm really not a very comfortable Democrat. I mean the Democrats in the last elections proved themselves to be a bunch of dithering pussies... and it was pathetic. So I'm just waiting until one party or the other actually gets a moral compass and a backbone.
  • John Perry Barlow, in "John Perry Barlow: Wyoming's Estimated Prophet" - interview with Aaron Davis in Planet JH Weekly (28 July 2005).

• 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.
  • Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley's Opinions (1901), p. 93.

• Democrats don't get criticized for anything. I mean I could probably drive a woman off a bridge in a car, if I were a Democrat, and get elected.
  • Rush Limbaugh, referring to Ted Kennedy's political survival after the Chappaquiddick Incident, on The Rush Limbaugh Show (25 September 2009).

• The Democrats have moved to the right, and the Republicans have moved to a mental hospital.
  • Bill Maher, as quoted in "Johann Hari: Republicans, religion and the triumph of unreason", The Independent (19 August 2009).

• The Democrats just never learn: Americans don't really care which side of an issue you're on as long as you don't act like pussies. When Van Jones called the Republicans assholes, he was paying them a compliment. He was talking about how they can get things done even when they're in the minority, as opposed to the Democrats, who can't seem to get anything done even when they control both houses of Congress, the presidency, and Bruce Springsteen.
  • Bill Maher, in "New Rule: Float Like Obama, Sting Like Ali" at The Huffington Post (11 September 2009).

• When Democrats rush up to me at events and insist that we live in the worst of political times, that a creeping fascism is closing its grip around our throats, I may mention the internment of Japanese Americans under FDR, the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams, or a hundred years of lynching under several dozen administrations as having been possibly worse, and suggest we all take a deep breath. When people at dinner parties ask me how I can possibly operate in the current political environment, with all the negative campaigning and personal attacks, I may mention Nelson Mandela, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or some guy in a Chinese or Egyptian prison somewhere. In truth, being called names is not such a bad deal.
  • Barack Obama, in The Audacity of Hope (2006).

• The southern Democrats are in the saddle and the northern Democrats must tag along as best they may, no matter what ill may betide.
  • John Jacob Rogers, remarks in the House (May 2, 1913), Congressional Record, vol. 50, p. 42.

• The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it.
  • P. J. O'Rourke‎, in Parliament of Whores (1991).

• I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat.
  • Will Rogers, as quoted in Will Rogers, Ambassador of Good Will, Prince of Wit and Wisdom (1935).

• I am not a member of any organized party—I am a Democrat.
  • Will Rogers, P. J. O'Brien, Will Rogers, Ambassador of Good Will, Prince of Wit and Wisdom (1935), chapter 9, p. 162. "Rogers was a lifelong Democrat but he studiously avoided partisanship. He contributed to the Democratic campaign funds, but at the same time he frequently appeared on benefit programs to raise money for the Republican treasury. Republican leaders sought his counsel in their campaigns as often as did the Democrats". Id., p. 162.

• We can make this thing into a Party, instead of a Memory.
  • Will Rogers, letter to Al Smith regarding the Democratic party (January 19, 1929); in The Autobiography of Will Rogers, ed. Donald Day (1949), p. 197.

• You've got to be optimist to be a Democrat, and you've got to be a humorist to stay one.
  • Will Rogers, Good Gulf radio show (June 24, 1934), Radio Broadcasts of Will Rogers, ed. Steven K. Gragert (1983), p. 92.