Democrat VS. Republican Party

Scientists have now decided to characterize the time period after 1968 as a new party system. Others have noted some changes within the electorate that explain the Republican popularity nationally. One of these was Ronald Reagan who was elected in 1980, another was the migration of southern whites, changing from democrats to republicans, some argue this has made the South completely uncompetitive for democrats. They suggest that focusing themselves in the Southeast and Midwest would be better. Additionally, the new party system seems to have evenly matched intense party competition and a divided government in which the president from one party must deal with the Congress of another. One fierce example of this is the 2000 election, when even the Senate was equally divided with fifty from one party and fifty from the other. Another huge characteristic of the New Party System is dealignment, when scholars see fewer voters identifying with one of the two parties, and self-identifying as independent instead. Some people have also begun to vote for people from both or third parties. Since 1968, candidate centered politics has become more and more important, for instance, the candidate committees, who can spend, collect, and campaign for candidates they support. This has put elected officials much less in debt to their parties than in the past, and they may sometimes demonstrate less loyalty to their party when passing bills. Others argue that this could simply mean that the responsible party system (parties’ job to distinguish between the two clearly) has become less effective, though most would disagree.

Religion

LGBTQ Issues

Democrats tend to not have any religious affiliations. If they do, they usually aren't regularly or actively participating in many traditional religious activities.

Abortion and Healthcare

Democrats believe that all people should benefit from civil rights, including LGBTQ people.

They also support churches to do whatever they wish regarding marriages, same sex or not, without government interference. At the moment, many democrats are pushing for states to legalize same sex marriage.

Democrats believe that a woman's right to choose to abort is a constitutional liberty, even if the mother cannot pay. They support embryonic stem cell research.

They also think that affordable healthcare should be available to anyone, and believe strongly of helping those in need.

Graphic Organizer: Democrat vs. Republican

Environmentalism

Democrats believe that immediate action should be taken on climate change, as they believe climate change is a serious threat to the earth and humanity.

They also believe that clean and renewable energy resources are a way to start with the world clean-up

Democrats are determined to reduce gas and energy prices and make these resources of energy available to anyone.

They are also interested in making the world a cleaner place and consider it to be one of their top priorities. They want to create more jobs for America revolving around energy-- clean energy that is. Renewable energy resources are a great way to make more jobs according to democrats.

Business Owners

The Democratic Party

Republicans tend to support looser policies, taxing, and governmental involvement for businesses, which gives them a lot of support for that.

Governmental Involvement

Religion

Upper Middle Class

Democrats believe that to help people to the best of their ability, the best way is through a higher level of governmental involvement.

This is how the universal healthcare system has come into play. Aside from this, to pay for universal healthcare, they often need to have higher taxation rates, and support progressive taxation.

Because of their belief in higher levels of government involvement, democrats also tend to believe in more gun control from the government.

Religion plays a part in this because mainly because of their pro-life belief for abortion.

A lot of the supporters of republicans tend to be Christians who regularly go to church, and bringing in abortion gets more religious supporters.

Most upper of the upper middle class tends to be supporters of the republicans. This is mainly because democrats support a large social safety net, and tax everybody to equally help those in need. Most of the upper middle class does not have these problems and therefore thinks it unnecessary.

The Republican Party

The Republican Party tends to get a lot of support from religious people, business owners, and the upper middle class.

Party Ideals, Values, and Policy Problems

Religion

Lower Class

Republicans tend to be more traditional and have traditional religious values, and are often conservatives. They tend to be of Christians who regularly attend church. This transfers their religious beliefs to political beliefs.

The Democratic party views people in need as one of their top priorities and puts a lot of emphasis on helping those in need. One of the huge steps that advanced this was affordable healthcare (Obama-care)

Abortion and Healthcare

Minorities

Because the Republican party gets a lot of its support from Christians, and Christians are often have beliefs against abortion, in general republicans do too.

The Republican Party also gets a lot of support from the upper middle class, this is because Democrats usually support higher taxes for everybody to help those in need more. Normally these problems don't affect the people in the upper classes, and they tend to be less supportive of cheaper healthcare such as Obama-care.

The Democratic Party

VS

The Republican Party

As stated before, the Democratic Party puts a lot of emphasis on those in need, which in general, tend to be non-white (there are many exceptions). Aside from this, they also support equality for all people, including colored people and gays. One way this was recently hugely advanced was having our first black president, which also gained more support for the Democratic Party from other minorities and non-white people.

Demographic Groups and the Party in Electorate

The Republican Party

The Democratic Party

LGBQT Issues

The Democratic Party gets a lot of support from the lower classes, minorities, and women, mainly because of their emphasis on helping those in need and equal rights. People who lived through the Great Depression and cooperative federalism also tend to be democrats.

Republicans, because of their traditional and conservative views tend to be against LGBTQ rights. In terms of marriage, they believe it is the union of one man and one woman and nothing else, supporting many religious views. They also believe that homosexuals and the military service do not mix.

Environmentalism

Governmental Involvement

Only a minority of republicans consider climate change to be a major threat and want to make actions to prevent any more damage.

This could be, in part, to the fact that many supporters of the Republican party are business owners and the upper middle class, most of which own land. They are often reluctant to give up their rights of controlling their environment.

Women

The Republican party is conservative and believes in limited government control. They prefer to leave most of the power either with the states, local, or to the people themselves.

This is huge today, one example of this is gun control. Republicans often believe that there should be less gun control, and the federal government should have less control over weaponry.

Another piece when this comes in is with businesses and taxing. More government control often results in higher taxing. More government control can also result in more regulations set on businesses too; all of which republicans are against.

Example Person

Until recently, women have been vastly ignored within the world of politics. Because the democratic party puts so much emphasis on equal rights, women, who make up 52 percent of the population, tend to lean every so slightly left. As you can probably tell, in a presidential election, this can make a huge difference. Democrats are also pro-choice with abortion, which most women seem to see as more favorable. Another reason they might support the democratic party is that the democratic party, not the republicans, had the first women to run as a presidential candidate.

Our example person is a man of color, he is a mixed fella (Filipino and Black) who is extremely politically engaged and hopes to run for senate one day. He is 29 years old, graduated from the University of Maryland. He is a christian, but attends church very inconsistently. One of his friends is gay.

The History of Political Parties

Political Machine

During this time, political parties were huge, and parties (Republican and Democrat) started to use the political machine to exert control over aspects of people’s lives, and patronage to reward people for their support. Political machines can be controlling and corrupt, but are effective and have been used to integrate immigrants and provide a safety net for those who need it.

Third Party System

The most important job of a political party is to run candidates for president and try and campaign and get supporters for them. This is a huge part of communicating from the general public to the federal government, while keeping the public informed. It can also help organize the government and keep the other party or parties in check.

Fourth Party System

By the 1850’s, slavery had become the primary concern for both the Whigs, and the Democrats (Jacksonian). This issue ended up dividing the Whig party into pro slavery (southern plantation owners) and abolitionists (northern industrialists), causing the party to lose strength and fade away. In its place, the Republicans (also called the Grand Old Party or GOP) took shape in 1854 and gained support from the abolitionists and black people in the north (where they could vote).

End of the Fifth Party

The fourth party system started in 1896 during the Bryan (democrat) and McKinley (republican) election when the core values of each party shifted. Bryan appealed to the rural dwellers, protestants, southerners, mid-westerners, and people suspicious of Catholic, ethnic, working class immigrants in the urban Northeast. McKinley put emphasis on economic growth and development, garnering support from industrialists, bankers, and people who saw him as good for the economy. McKinley won and stayed in office until 1912 when Theodore Roosevelt succeeded him as a republican.

Welcome to the New Age

The Fifth Party System opened up party politics and civic activity to a huge group of people including African Americans and women, giving them a feeling that they had a voice in their government. Roosevelt died in 1945 during his fourth term, and Harry Truman (vice president) assumed presidency. Truman was elected during the next election, but the Democrats were unable to stay as popular as they had been in Roosevelt's time. Republican Dwight Eisenhower won the election in 1952 and thus began the flip flop between Republicans and Democrats holding office. Republicans from 1952-1960 and 1968-2008. Democrats from 1960-1968 and 2008+.

Jacksonian Democrats

Federalist vs Anti-Federalist

This hugely changed the way the political system was run and how the people were involved, they made it so that any white male could vote, created the first steps to a women’s suffrage, and increased the importance of candidate selection because more people could become president. In the 1930’s, southern plantation owners and northern industrialists worried about how the Jacksonian democrats would affect the elite, and created the Whig Party who ended up with 2 presidents. Either way, Jackson’s populism set the platform for the two party system and they lasted until 1860.

This could mean that...

Fifth Party System

Independent Progressive Then Republican

The founding fathers did not originally plan for there to be parties within the government, they were originally regarded with suspicion and contempt. However, two political parties emerged, the federalists and the anti-federalists, beginning the first party system in the US. Throughout American political history, there have been many shifts in power and realignments shaping our history.

When Roosevelt ran for his second term, he ran as a Progressive. This party advocated for widespread government reform and wanted to limit political power. The Republican party then split between the Progressive party and Taft’s (opposition) regular Republicans. Wilson then became president (progressive) and enacted many of the progressive party’s proposals, and the power of political machines declined, giving more power to the electorate. After his two terms, Republicans again, dominated and benefited from industrialization, african americans, and the support of women who could now vote.

In 1929, the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began, thus beginning the Fifth Party System too. In 1932, Franklin D Roosevelt, a democrat, was elected president for an increased role in the government helping the public. This is how cooperative federalism came, and how there became democratic dominance. See, Roosevelt worked really hard to create the New Deal program, which would create a “safety net” for the people. Roosevelt's New Deal became so popular that there were people supporting it from all over the US (called the New Deal coalition), allowing him to take office four times in a row.

He is a democrat, most non-white mixed persons tend to lean left. Democrats also believe and support women's rights (Right to choose), just like him. Because he is somewhat foreign in a predominantly white country, we can also assume that he supports immigrant rights, another democratic trait. He is very active in talking about and acting on LGBTQ rights. He may also support environmentalism.

Second Party System

First Party System

By 1828 the Jeffersonian Republic was losing some of its popularity, and when Andrew Jackson (of Tennessee) began the Jacksonian Democrats, lots of support went there. One of their biggest emphasis was on leadership going to those with merit, not those with money or a good name, and populism was greatly supported. Because of these new values of giving power to the masses, there was increased political participation and Andrew Jackson was then elected president in 1828.

The First Party System was developed in 1789 and remained until 1828. The Federalists preferred a strong central government and was started by Alexander Hamilton. The Anti-Federalists were formed in response to this by Jefferson. Adams, a federalist, became the second president in 1796, but he only lasted one term because Jefferson had established a very strong base support while he was Washington’s secretary of state. When Adams lost the race to Jefferson, it marked the end of the Federalists.

Jeffersonian Republicans

Jefferson’s supporters, the anti-federalists, then became known as Jeffersonian Republican, then Democratic Republicans, today they are known as democrats. The Jeffersonian Republicans were very effective when communicating with voter, and without an organized opposition, continued to dominate from 1815 to 1828 in what is known as the Era of Good Feelings.