Political word association

Jeff. Sees the ElephantIt occurred to me this morning that, when I play political “word association,” the results are interesting. The game is to think of big events in America, past or present, and then associate a political party name with them, whether because the party was in power at the time or is associated with the ideology. Here goes:

  • Slavery: Democrats
  • Jim Crow: Democrats
  • Emancipation: Republicans
  • KKK: Democrats
  • WWI: Democrats
  • WWII: Democrats
  • Depression: Republicans (Hoover, for 3 years); Democrats (FDR, for 9 years)
  • Vietnam: Democrats (JFK got us in, LBJ escalated)
  • Pathetic retreat from Vietnam: Democrats (who made it impossible to fight); Republicans (Nixon’s and Ford’s name associated with the retreat)
  • Watergate: Republicans
  • Servergate: Democrats
  • Emailgate: Democrats
  • Weaponized IRS: Democrats
  • Fast & Furious: Democrats
  • Iraq: Republicans
  • Iraq Success: Republicans
  • Iraq Retreat: Democrats
  • Opening of China: Republicans
  • EPA: Republicans (Nixon started the damn thing); Democrats (who keep shoving it down our throats)
  • Public Employee Unions: Democrats (from Kennedy through to today)
  • Failed Schools: Democrats
  • Inner City Gghettos: Democrats
  • Generations on Welfare: Democrats
  • Unlimited abortion up to and after birth: Democrats
  • Gay Marriage: Democrats
  • Trigger Warnings: Democrats
  • Microaggressions: Democrats
  • Social Justice Warriors: Democrats
  • American Colleges and Universities: Democrats (who control almost all of them for better or, usually, for worse)
  • Vote fraud: Democrats (including against their own kind, as the Bernie debacle shows)
  • Redistribution of Wealth: Democrats
  • Media: Democrats (they own the American media for better or, usually, for worse)
  • Hollywood: Democrats (at least since the 1960s)
  • Civil Rights Movement: Republicans (but that’s only because I actually know my history)
  • 9/11: Democrats (that’s my political bias showing because, while I know it happened 8 months into Bush’s administration, I blame the Clinton administration for creating the circumstances that led to it, from al Qaeda to federal agencies that wouldn’t communicate with each other)
  • The 1950s: Republicans
  • The 1960s: Democrats
  • The 1970s: Democrats
  • The 1980s: Republicans
  • The 1990s: Democrats
  • The 2000s: Republicans
  • The 2010s: Democrats
  • Hippies: Democrats
  • The WWII generation: Republicans (even though it was the Roosevelt era, I can’t get unstuck from feeling that the men and women fighting the war had conservative values)
  • Silicon Valley: Apolitical (to begin within); Democrats (now i.e., Limousine Leftists)
  • Prohibition: Democrats and Republicans
  • Cold War: Republicans and Cold War Democrats in the beginning; only Republicans at the end
  • Roaring 20s: Republicans
  • Sexual Revolution: Democrats
  • Equality for Women: Democrats and Republicans
  • Feminazis: Democrats
  • Gender Fluidity: Democrats
  • Free Market: Republicans (but not enough)
  • Command and Control Economy: Democrats
  • Big Band Music:  Democrats and Republicans
  • Rock and Roll: Democrats
  • Drug Culture: Democrats
  • Anti-War Movements: Democrats

Any other suggestions for ideas or events in American history that you feel can be attributed strongly to one party (and, as you can see, those attributions can change with time)?

And if we try to make an honest list, can we then look at it and reach any conclusions things that were good and things that were bad for America, and whether a single party is most closely associated with one side or another of that judgment call?