Question: Conservative Democrat/ Liberal Republican

While these are generalizations, I would say a conservative Democrat is one that tends to be liberal on social issues, but more conservative than your average Democrat on fiscal issues - Blue Dog dems.

A liberal Rep would be one who is conservative on fiscal issues but more liberal than your average Rep on social issues.

 

Those two things are the same thing.

 

Wait, what is it if you are liberal on everything, however you are conservative on social issues??

 

liberal spender, but conservative social issues?

Spoiler

 

No - it's a spectrum. I'd suggest a conservative Democrat is still overall more liberal than a liberal Republican, but they are closer on the spectrum than a "regular Dem or Rep.

 

I just meant that you defined them the same way, with both socially liberal and fiscally conservative; you just reversed the descriptors.

 

Sorry - I mean that a conservative Dem is more conservative on fiscal issues than a Dem, but not that they are actually conservative on them. Similarly, a liberal Rep would more liberal on social issues than a regular Rep, but not as liberal as a regular Dem.

But realistically, I'd guess there is a lot of crossover. People who have more liberal views but traditionally identify themselves as Republicans become a liberal Rep. People with conservative views who've always thought of themselves as Democrats become conservative Dems. In the grand scheme of things, the two groups combined probably form the majority center of the country.

 

Someone started a thread with the exact same question a few months ago. It isn't this simple, but I'll say this in general:

A conservative Dem is usually one who is much more socially conservative than the party. Many of these Dems also hang towards the center on fiscal issues. A few of them may as well be Republicans.

Elected "liberal Republicans" have mostly been killed off. They are more socially liberal than GOP party leadership. Most of them also remain right-of-center fiscally, though a tiny few are centrists.

For the most part right now, the biggest distinction between Dems and Republicans are views on taxes and spending.

 

Liberal republican is a social liberal who wants small government, and conservative democrat is a social conservative who wants big government. at least that's how i see it.

 

< conservative democrat here. fiscally conservative (see: Ron Paul), socially conservative (but I believe the gov shouldn't be involved on social issues, ie: abortions gays everything, if you want to be gay and get married, you can, if you wanna get an abortion, go ahead, the government has nothing to do with that). But what makes me a democrat is foreign policy: those neo-con Republicans just want to go around starting wars and policing the world, and that just doesn't do it for me..

but your question doesn't really make sense in the current time because the republican party has turned into tea-party-having ignorant racists who think the czars are going to take their land and ACORN is teaming up with FEMA to intern them into brainwashing camps.. when 28% of your party strongly believes that the president is an illegal immigrant and and 30% are undecided, this means that any person with a partially functional brain would avoid being associated with it..

 

The way I understand it is...it's a question of the lesser of two evils in most cases...with only two major parties in America, party affiliation is terribly broad and can often encompass a lot of conflicting groups. Political centrists and assorted political groups are often split based on minute differences although ideally, they would be able to form major parties of their own (unfortunately, that is currently somewhere between very difficult and impossible)

Libertarians for example would have to choose between shunning Democrats for their big-gouvernment economics or shunning Republicans for social conservatism. They would either be liberal Republicans or conservative Democrats depending on their own personal preferences.

Neoconservatives are the most interesting case. Their intellectual heritage is based on modern liberals who swung away from the left in the 1970s. It seems that on the whole, they are socially and economically moderate with perhaps a slight bias to the left. Their outlook on foreign policy is also distinctly liberal/idealist; using America's power and influence to foster liberal democracy and promote justice and equality. The only thing that keeps them deeply entrenched in the right is the modern left's staunch opposition to war and high military budgets and their method of choice happens to be military intervention (or some would say military adventurism.)

 

Conservative Democrats can exist and get elected while Liberal Republicans are a dying breed and will go extinct soon enough.

 

as someone who *roughly* feels similar as POint Forward, I can say that I think the gov has absolutely ZERO business in the marriage business.

I also am not a fan of sticking our noses in other countries business till we can properly take care of our own country.

As much as I detest politics in general, I try to stay informed about the actual facts....something both parties seem to have forgotten how to do....which is why I would never join a political party....I prefer to think for myself and choose who I think is the best qualified.