It's not quite that easy, to be honest. And here's where I lose my audience...

We have two very pro corporate parties, that are pro military, one who is right and one who is center right, if you look at actual policy and spending. The main difference is on abortion legislation, gay rights, gun legislation (sort of... and that depends on the Democrat), and to an even lesser extent some tax policies, but with political funding how it is, no parties really bite the hand that feed them so 95% of tax policy is talk and "trickle down economic policy" is entrenched, much to the detriment of our country.

Most of the substantial difference is talking points and bluster, it pains me to say. Even gay rights is pretty new to the table... that didn't come about until Hillary Clinton ran against Trump, when she finally changed her position on gay marriage (though I think she was one of the last major hold outs).

The major problem with our American system of politics is the two party stranglehold that has been imposed upon and that those two parties have made nearly impossible to rid ourselves of. It's one of the things (other than war profiteering and insider trading) they vehemently agree on.

Thanks for the reply! Regarding corporate lobbying there seems to be a small relatively powerless group within the Democrats that are strongly against it, and I guess parts of the so-called alt-right fall into this category, too, but I agree that the core of both parties is strongly pro-corporate in a way that is anti-democratic. I'm re-reading a great book currently called "Why nations Fail", and looking at the US through their lense is super interesting.

The main thesis of the book is that the success or failure of nations is predicated on institutions working in a predictable way and guruanteeing broad and equal access to these institutions and the economy at large. The US was better than other countries at this for most of its existence (despite the horrible "exclusion" of non-whites and women). Today, the US seems to be slipping, and while I do agree that the Democrats aren't innocent on this either, and things like insider trading, corporate lobbying and political nepotism apply strongly to both parties, the Republicans always seem to be a bit worse (or have worse marketing).

Only having two choices in party certainly makes this way worse, but there's also the constant challenging of political norms that I would think mostly comes from the Republican side. (Although Obama was the first president to largely rule by EO, which itself is a pretty major breach of convention, and an attack on the democratic instituions)