Note: The following came in from a Wyoming Democrat. While we attempt to share work that reflects the WDP platform, you may come across some words that are not exactly what WDP would have written. Perhaps you will agree with and value what you read below, perhaps not. Your mileage may vary. -ed.
This, from a Wyoming Dem, was originally published in the Sundance Times. -ed.
Political Parties in the United States
The Two Party System
Democrat vs Republican
Rodney Knudson (author)
Two political parties dominate the United States political/economic system that were created to ameliorate social and economic problems. The Depression of 1929 initiated new perspectives in what roll the government should play in our economic lives as a consequence of a system that proved itself incapable of providing direction to the evolution of an economythat could enable full employment at a decent wage. At that point the Democratic Party, under the leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, stepped up to the plate to introduce Social Security as a solution to take care of those of retirement age, ajobs programs for the 25 % of the people who were unemployed, public housing for the homeless and other programs. WWII was another full employment venture that enabled people to move out of poverty into massive home ownership and educational opportunities following the end of the war in large part because of the GI Bill initiated by the FDR Administration. Though President Harry Truman attempted to introduce universal health care in 1945 to meet an obvious need, that attempt was thwarted by the AMA and conservative Democrats and Republicans. It was not until the Johnson Administration in 1965 that Medicare for the retired and Medicaid for the poorer people wereintroduced. This still left many people without healthcare as many healthcare insurance companies did not accept people with preexisting conditions. It wasn’t until the Affordable Health Care act was passed in 2014 under the Obama Administration that this restriction was eliminated. The history of medical care and food assistance availability has always been piecemeal in the United States. Food assistance was begun in 1939 but didn’t turn national until 1964 under the Johnson Administration which has seen modifications and enlargements under the SNAP act (supplemental nutrition assistance program) of 2008 over the veto of Republican President George W. Bush.
Today we have a Republican administration under Donald J. Trump that is obviously intent on turning back all the history that has to a large extent brought people out of poverty into what is referred to as the middle class. The sixteen federal agencies have over time evolved to answer the many problems of government oversight needed to address problems as they arose.The conflicts of operations need constant awareness. Problems don’t go away, they only become more exacerbated by neglect. And Trump seems to be completely oblivious to all of this. He is showing no interest in promoting people’s health and well-being at all and he is ripping trillions of dollars out of allocated federal funds to the benefit of the billionaires who have supported his administration. The Republican dominated legislative system has stood fecklessly in the shadows and the Supreme Court likewise. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the guidance of Elon Musk has attacked federal agencies, eliminating 80,000 jobs in the Veterans Administration alone and 7,000 jobs from Social Security alone. These are just examples of the impact of DOGE. And now we have government shutdown where numerous programs will be defunded by November 1st, SNAP for one. Only the State and Federal Courts have responded time after time to temper the avalanche of Presidential decrees that violate normal legislative protocols.
What is not appreciated by the many is that the inclusiveness in our economy has largely happened under the direction of Democratic administrations under circumstances where the opposition from the Republican Party was within manageable proportions. That doesn’t seem to be the picture today. Numerous programs affecting people of modest means and people in general are being defunded: (1) Medicaid is being defunded at the tune of almost a trillion dollars; (2) SNAPdefunding potentially affecting 41 million people dependent upon the program; (3) EPA, originally formed under the Nixon Administration is now being compromised by imposing fewer restrictions on polluters; (4) FEMA with potentially devastating consequences in addressing future environmental catastrophes brought about by climate change; (5) human induced global climate change is being ignored by reverting to coal (each ton of coal burned turns into two tons of the heat trapping gas, C02, that stays in the atmosphere for 1000 years and therefore is accumulating) and away from wind and solar, the cheapest way of producing electricity; (6) eliminating the Dept. of Educationand the programs that assure DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion); (7) attacks on universities by defunding and fining them because they have allowed First Amendment rights of their students to protest the GAZA genocide paid for by US dollars; (8) defunding USAID at the expense of millions of desperate people around the world dependent on that program; (9) ignoring the rights of asylum seekers by denying them due process many of whom are in the United States because of sanctions/embargoes or wars imposed by the US on their country of origin; such as, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Gaza, Ukraine, et.al.; (10) defunding CDC and reducing their ability to provide mRNA vaccines to fight the next pandemic; (11) sending national guard troops to cities as law enforcement replacements where they are not needed (Washington DC’s crime rate is the lowest in 30 years); (12) placing people at the head of agencies with no qualifications (Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a lawyer as head of the National Institute of Health (NIH),Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel); (13) arbitrary imposition of punishing tariffs on nations resulting in the disruption of just in time supply chains and increasing prices. Severe impacts are accruing to the US agriculture sector: soybean, corn, wheat et. al. are rotting in storage because China and other countries have rejected these exports in favor of produce from Canada and Brazil, much more reliable sources.
And this beat will go on to 2028 (unless Trump gets a third term) according to the Project 2025 playbook, a document of about a 1000 pages, but available in a 57 page summary by Wikipedia (on your computer).