In the US, there are two major political parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Since the formation of these parties, they have always held to the political ideas of their founders. Such ideologies often influence the individual parties’ political debates. When in rule, the ideologies influence the types of policies they pass to intervene in a given social or economic behavior. The US's common ideologies guiding political parties include conservative ideology, liberal ideology, progressive ideology, communitarian ideology, and nationalist ideology. Based on the ideologies chosen by a political party, the party may promote morality by promoting a particular set of values and principles, which all citizens are required to conform to whenever the political party is in power. The values and principles could be through policies or even through the political agendas the president elected by such a political party promotes. The conservatives, the ideology championed by the republicans, believe in local government and do not favor government interference in the economy but rather believe that government should ensure traditional morality to be upheld (Khan Academy, 2020). The democrats, on the other hand, align to liberal ideology, hence their belief that the government should intervene in the economy to ensure equality for all Americans (Khan Academy, 2020). This paper argues from historical facts, the most moral political party in the US between the democratic and the republican parties.
The Grand Old Party, which later transformed into the Republican Party, was initially formed based on promoting moral principles such as free land, free labor, and anti-slavery. In 1820, Missouri Compromise divided America into two the slavery north and the pro-slavery south (UShistory, 2020). This destroyed peace existing between the northerners and the southerners until 1854 when the Kansas-Nebraska act passed. This act allowed the slaves to choose whether their states would remain under slavery or free from slavery. The founders of the party then argued that if slavery would continue in the south, America would only be concerned with gaining wealth and property while undermining slaves’ protection and equality rights. The founders, such as Abraham Lincoln, through their campaigns, championed liberty rather than slavery. Four years later, Abraham Lincoln, through the Republican Party, became the president. After becoming the president and guided by the central party ideologies guiding republicans, Lincoln fought with the southerners in the civil war of 1861 to ensure all the states became prohibited slavery (UShistory, 2020). The civil war started because republicans wanted to abort the immoral behavior in the name of slavery.
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Religious liberty is another moral principle guiding republican political parties in their governance. Based on the originalism theory the conservatives often refer to, they occasionally nominate representatives who pledge and adhere to the faith. This theory influences the qualities of personalities who can serve both in justice systems and as presidents because they all have to conform to the Judeo-Christian core values (Grzymala-Busse, 2019). This identification is shared amongst the US presidents elected through the Republican Party. For instance, President Dwight Eisenhower promoted governance deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian faith (Grzymala-Busse, 2019). This call means that republican political parties firmly believe that their leadership should be based on the ten commandments, which are moral principles guiding Christians and Judaism. One such moral values promoted by the commandments is the value of human dignity. For this reason, when Ronald Reagan was elected, the president fought against abortion by setting up policies to ensure the states' practice ended. According to the conservatives' principles, abortion undermines religious liberty. Donald Trump is the recent president elected under republican and to show support for religious liberty, made policies allowing employers to avoid providing contraceptives if individuals subjected came from religious communities (Fairfaxgop.org, 2018). Trump also supported religious institutions such as universities by removing restrictions, which initially limited religious universities from receiving the government’s money to support their operations. Still, Trump has promoted religious freedom by protecting religious citizens from discrimination based on their beliefs and constant demonstrations against same-sex relationships.
Democratic Party, on the other hand, promotes equality regardless of sex, age, race, or ethnicity as their primary moral principle. Through this moral principle, the democrats promote different social liberalism positions such as labor unions, ethnic minorities, and religious unions ( Lumenlearning, 2020) . Because of the liberal ideology the party mainly draws from, most cases support moral principles touching on equal economic distributions. Thus, the Democrats were against the abolishment of slavery by the republicans hence the civil war (Quince, 2016). The Democrats felt that the industrialized north would de-promote agricultural development in the south hence economic inequality to the south. This feel made the democrats vote against the 1ng3 amendment and the 15th amendment. The democrats viewed human rights or the moral value of social justice to come only from positive freedom, which they believed, could only result from equal economic opportunities, like taxing by ensuring the wealthy northerners paid more taxes and raising the minimum wage for all Americans. from the same liberalism positions, the democrats support equality among several social issues to ensure every American have equal opportunities, same voting rights, endorsing immigration platforms and promotion of reproductive rights such as the rights of the LGBTS. The democrats, through several laws, have enacted several acts to ensure the economy is stable so that the moral value of equality is promoted to all Americans.
The core political ideologies are what determine the moral status of a political party in the US. The Democrats, through their idea liberal ideology, firmly hold that through equality, moral principles will be promoted, but instead, this has led to immoral behaviors such as promoting equality for the benefit of the economy instead of protecting slaves. However, the republicans, guided by their conservative ideology, prefer solutions to problems and, on several occasions, have proved this ideology by fighting for the rights of slaves, fighting against abortion and homosexuality.
References
Grzymala-Busse, A. (2019, April 17). The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/17/once-judeo-christian-tradition-united-americans-now-it-divides-them/
Fairfaxgop.org. (2018, October 17). Republicans are delivering for America . Fairfax County Republican Committee. https://fairfaxgop.org/trumps-accomplishments/
Grzymala-Busse, A. (2019, April 17). The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/17/once-judeo-christian-tradition-united-americans-now-it-divides-them/
Khan academy. (2020). Ideologies of political parties: Lesson overview (article) . Khan Academy. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-government-and-civics/us-gov-american-political-ideologies-and-beliefs/us-gov-ideologies-of-political-parties/a/lesson-summary-ideologies-of-political-parties
Lumenlearning. (2020). The two-party system | Boundless political science . Lumen Learning – Simple Book Production. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-politicalscience/chapter/the-two-party-system/
Quince, A. (2016, July 19). From Lincoln to Trump: The long evolution of the Republican Party . ABC Radio National. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/the-long-evolution-of-the-republican-party/7625722
UShistory. (2020). The origins of the Republican Party . US History. https://www.ushistory.org/gop/origins.htm
