Is the Democrat Party influenced by Marx?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

But seriously, modernity itself is influenced by Marx. Profoundly. (It's also influenced by, for example, Newton, Voltaire, Comte.) If any more profoundly in the case of the Democratic Party than in other cases, only by a trivial amount, relatively speaking.

Basically this was going to be my attempt at a 'serious' answer. I would say though the ghost of vulgar marxism consistently haunts all political discourse to this even in places where at first glance Marx is the 'enemy' (American conservatism are fond of what might be termed 'reserve vulgar marxism' in their rhetoric for example).

[Tetro Kornbluth]

But seriously, modernity itself is influenced by Marx. Profoundly. (It's also influenced by, for example, Newton, Voltaire, Comte.) If any more profoundly in the case of the Democratic Party than in other cases, only by a trivial amount, relatively speaking.

Basically this was going to be my attempt at a 'serious' answer. I would say though the ghost of vulgar marxism consistently haunts all political discourse to this even in places where at first glance Marx is the 'enemy' (American conservatism are fond of what might be termed 'reserve vulgar marxism' in their rhetoric for example).

Nice, but you should've said the "spectre of vulgar Marxism" rather than the ghost.

Yes, my ability to mix metaphors really does damage to the aesthetics of my arguments. I will have to pay more attention in future.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Basically this was going to be my attempt at a 'serious' answer. I would say though the ghost of vulgar marxism consistently haunts all political discourse to this even in places where at first glance Marx is the 'enemy' (American conservatism are fond of what might be termed 'reserve vulgar marxism' in their rhetoric for example).

presuming you meant 'reverse vulgar Marxism', this was about what I was planning to say, and I was also going to say that, in this sense, Republicans (at least, the brain trust, not the true-believer politicians) are more marxist than Democrats.

Uggh... yes. Stupid Typos. Reverse Vulgar Marxisms. And yes I would agree that the GOP is more 'marxist' (even if not Marxist) than the Democrats.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Or put it another way (yes, I know this thread should be killed with fire but I actually think this is an interesting topic once put aside the political fluff) Marx is to the study of politics and society what Freud is to the study of the human mind. Both were remarkable genuises in the way they built their intellectual schema yet having built and then made deductions from that schema they came up with ideas that turned out to be horribly wrong. Yet such was the power and influence of their original ideas (and the mutations from their original ideas) that they became fundamental to their subjects, which would be in the modern form unimaginable without them. Even the proclaimed enemies of Marx speak his language and try to refute him using ideas originally conceived by him. Marx, like Freud, is a dead thinker who is still embedded in every crevice of the subjects he touched.

Non-Marxist sociology or Non-Freudian Psychology makes as much sense as Non-Pythagorian geometry really.