While there is often little difference in foreign policy, their approach to social issues is vastly different. You probably don't pay any attention to this though. It does however ultimately affect you, since such a powerful but broken country could wield incredible damage abroad.
However even in foreign policy matters, there would have been different results with respect to the Iraq war. The invasion was a quick and massive pivot away from the more justifiable war in Afghanistan. Given that Saddam Hussein tried to have Bush jr.'s father killed, that leaving Hussein in power was possibly some unfinished business of that same father, that Cheney's pet company Haliburton made ridiculous profits on government war contracts, and that it was a Republican sub-faction of neo-cons who were so desperate to invade, I think there's a good case for there being a big difference between the parties. Not to mention the key personal opinions among top Republican admin officials seemed to drive the use of "enhanced interrogation".
>While there is often little difference in foreign policy, their approach to social issues is vastly different.
I think that this is a fiction put forth by the parties to inspire their more extreme members, but is false when you consider where the two parties fall on a full political spectrum. Take for example a couple of the most divisive social issues today:
Same Sex Marriage: Clinton signed DOMA 15 years ago, Obama was against SSM 3 years ago, and I would be surprised if the 2024 (or even 2020) republican presidential candidate wasn't OK with SSM. I would guess those numbers to be similar in opinion polls, meaning that Republican voters' opinions on SSM probably lag those of Democrats by about 10 years or so. It's hard for me to get behind the idea that one party is evil and worthy of divestment when the 'preferred' party only came around in the last 5 years.
Health care: One party wants a huge single payer system for the old and the poor, employer provided coverage for most others, and a highly privatized and mandatory system for the rest. The other party wants a huge single payer system for the old and the poor, employer provided coverage for most others, and a highly privatized and optional system for the rest. Who wants single payer for all? Who wants to abolish medicare?
You are looking at the end results only, not the goals, the efforts taken by both sides before the result. With regards to health care, the Democrats have been expending huge amounts of political capital over decades trying to move the health care system towards single-payer, while the Republicans have been resisting such change. The Democrats finally succeeded with Obama's reforms, and Republicans have been desperately hoping it will crash and burn, and repeatedly trying to or threatening to repeal it given the first chance they can; they even tried to get the Supreme Court to declare Obamacare unconstitutional. Your claim that both sides want the same thing makes no sense.
The direction the parties are pushing policy towards are what makes the party. Remember when Bush tried to dismantle Social Security, to the cheers of practically no-one?
However even in foreign policy matters, there would have been different results with respect to the Iraq war. The invasion was a quick and massive pivot away from the more justifiable war in Afghanistan. Given that Saddam Hussein tried to have Bush jr.'s father killed, that leaving Hussein in power was possibly some unfinished business of that same father, that Cheney's pet company Haliburton made ridiculous profits on government war contracts, and that it was a Republican sub-faction of neo-cons who were so desperate to invade, I think there's a good case for there being a big difference between the parties. Not to mention the key personal opinions among top Republican admin officials seemed to drive the use of "enhanced interrogation".