it has taken me four or five months being active in the party politics scene, something I never cared for to begin with, to expose their differences.
The bolded part surprised me.
This is something surprising to those who casually know me but not at all surprising to those who know me deeply. I am a scientist, not a politician. While some of you are excited by an upsurge in partisanship and a change in the nature of political involvement in the eUS, I am not. I personally find it all rather petty, and it does the opposite for retaining me that it does for many of you political types.
There are differences between the eUS's parties, but they aren't as simple as a position on taxes or foreign relations. They are very subtle but existent; it has taken me four or five months being active in the party politics scene, something I never cared for to begin with, to expose their differences.
Share, please.
I'd be happy to in private conversation, but because of time issues (partially) right now I don't want to type up a full forum post about it. I am also willing to be honest about my impressions of the parties I've come to know and their changes over time, and this is too likely to offend people for me to want to make it all public. I recall Richardson doing something like this many months ago over in the Political Parties board.
Without calling any parties out, they can differ by their treatment of new members, their recruitment philosophy, the average level of their members, the average income of their members, how interested they are in real-life politics, how militaristic they are (conversely, how anti-imperialistic they are), how democratic they are (party primaries for CP or a leadership council deciding such things), the probability that their freshmen Congressional candidates will win, the probability that a Congressional hopeful is allowed to candidate, their forum activity, and their IRC activity (and even the HOURS of their IRC activity*).
* Alright, this is one thing I will mention the parties by name. It seems that the USWP wakes up the earliest while the Libertarian channel goes to bed the latest.