The difference between the parties and how they want to restore the middle class

Despite what pundits want you to believe, both parties want to restore the middle class.  The difference is in how they want to accomplish it. 

Democrats believe that the way to restore the middle class is to force employers to pay fair wages, an honest day's pay for an honest day's work if you will, something that many Americans haven't seen for the past three decades, and not for lack of putting in the honest day's labor either.  In addition, democrats want to institute greater social program coverage to keep people from hitting rock bottom and give them enough to meet their minimum needs even if they don't work to earn it and they intend to pay for it by taking a greater share from those at the upper end of the wealth spectrum.  In essence, democrats believe that restoring the middle class means adding more people to the middle class from both ends of the financial spectrum while decreasing the level of inequality between the classes.

By contrast, republicans believe that the way to restore the middle class is to define it better by increasing the level of inequality between the classes.  They believe that by taking more from the poor and funneling it to the rich the difference between the poor and the middle class will be so evident and clear that people who fall in the middle class who are still struggling to get by but aren't completely destitute yet will feel thankful that they're not in the lower income class.  Rather than add people to the middle class, they prefer to add definition between the classes.

There are examples of both of those styles of governance at work throughout the world that we can look at to decide which is better, or if both ideas are garbage.  For example, the democrats' plan has been at work in nations of the EU like the UK, France and Germany as well as other nations, such as Canada, China and even Japan to a lesser degree.  In contrast we can also see the republican plan in action in other countries as well, India is a prime example, Sierra Leone, Chad, Sudan, Syria, Pakistan, and Yemen all exemplify years of the republican style of middle class restoration. 

The question we as voters have to ask ourselves is whether we want the United States to resemble countries like Canada, Germany, France, the UK, etc. or whether we prefer the US to resemble nations like the Sudan, Syria, Pakistan or Yemen.  As with any type of preference, there's no right or wrong answer here.  I know what I prefer, but the decision isn't mine alone to make, it's up to us all, and you have to decide for yourself as well.