ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how difficult it would be to explain to a foreigner the difference between the Republican and Democratic parties. The two parties differ from each other, not in composition, or the interests they espouse, or the ideologies they represent, but in psychology. In the light of these psychological differences, certain rhetorical differences between the two parties assume a clearer significance. The characteristic Democratic rhetoric is represented by President Franklin Roosevelt, who effectively used such phrases as "princes of privilege," economic royalists, and "malefactors of great wealth" to rally the people to his side. Republican oratory sounds strangely heartless to Democratic ears. Republicans inveigh against creeping socialism and federal handouts. At the same time as they favor more generous tax write-offs and depletion allowances for industry, they grow furious at what they believe to be an increasing number of welfare chiselers.
