This falsehood typifies the confused thesis of this piece. The Democratic party in no way encourages members to "vilify their country cousins and unsophisticated hicks". This is a classic false equivalence, and distracts from the reality of our political situation. We have a progressive party that usually encourages consensus building towards solutions and a supposedly conservative party that has been vilifying "liberals" in the most stark and dishonest manner since Rush and Gingrich re-directed U.S. conservativism towards the politics of personal and ideological destruction. The parties also represent a basic ideological battle that started with disputes between Madison and Jefferson.