Look, at the moment neither party respects everyone, although the Democrats are closer. The Republican party has those flaws which HagridOfTheDeep pointed out, and he is right on that. The Democratic party--or in any case, the coastal elements of it-- disrespects the white working class, especially coal miners, as Fuzzy pointed out. The common fault of both is that they base politics on identity, rather than values. In reality, both are the same. And when anyone challenges that, or calls for a higher politics, they are immediately shot down with cynicism. The result is a race to the bottom in social and political mores.
Ten years ago, I could see someone say "both are the same" about our political parties and I would generally agree, even though I saw some particularly troubling signs on the Republican side even then. Now, seeing that claim threatens to fill me with incandescent rage - at the willful ignorance and stupidity, if not open malevolence, required to make it.
No, the Democrats are not a particularly great or even good party by American historical standards. Focusing on virtue signaling rather than real interests, poor organziation, an entrenched establishment within the party supporting their own interests and those of the wealthy and poweful to whom they eagerly insist on selling themselves, and on and on. The list of Democratic party flaws is large.
But to claims that those flaws are equal to the Republicans' consistent choice, over thirty years, to champion ignorance, to destroy their own capacity for rational thought, to embrace a series of ever-thinner veils over racism and misogyny and xenophobia, to promote a vile shell of a religion, all culminating in a government with the intellect and moral authority of a rabid rat that is not merely failing, but actively destroying our nation all while gleefully following the petulant ravings of an immature aspiring tyrant, that is the act of either a despicable villain or a vile fool.
