Hi koan; The Republican party of 1865 was the party of small business and protestant christianity. The Democrats were the party of Labor and various special interests (mostly immigrants). This is still true today.
The Republicans generally support a strong US dollar (gold standard back in its day), budget surpluses, a well funded military, and neutrality in international relations. The Democrats support an expansionist money policy, budget deficits, less military, and military relations depending on their latest special interests. The cold war got the Republicans away from neutrality. I wish they'd return to it. One of my disappointments with Obama was that he didn't reduce military spendings or our foreign military commitments much.
The Republicans have *always* been conservative and the Democrats have *always* been liberal. What you're doing is redefining "liberal" to mean "supporting the things I like". That's convenient for your self belief system but it is not compatible with political reality. The reality is that the slaves were freed by the conservatives.
For most of American history, only two dimensions are required to account for the fourteen million choices of the twelve thousand members who served in Congress. In fact, one dimension suffices except in two periods, roughly 1829–1851 and 1937–1970, when race-related issues introduced a second dimension. The two brief periods where the spatial model fails are the Era of Good Feelings, when there was a one party system, and the 32nd Congress (1851–1853), when the Compromise of 1850 unraveled. In these periods, there is a poor fit, even when 10 or more dimensions are used. Voting is chaotic.
The first dimension typically divides the two major parties on the fundamental issue of the role of government in the economy. The second dimension differentiates the members by region mainly over race and civil rights, but in the latter part of the nineteenth century it picked up regional differences on bimetallism and the free coinage of silver. In the modern era the primary dimension is liberal-moderate-conservative as it is commonly understood, and the second dimension captures the conflict over race and civil rights.
The political party system of the 1940s and 1950s emerged during the latter part of the New Deal when, in the wake of the 1936 elections, northern Democrats heavily outnumbered southern Democrats in Congress.5 Many of the programs initiated during the subsequent Second New Deal were not to the liking of the South. Voting on minimum wages in 1937 and 1938, followed by voting during World War II on the poll tax and voting rights in the armed forces, helped to split the Democratic Party into two distinct regional wings.6 Voting in Congress became two dimensional in order to differentiate northerners from southerners on civil rights and related votes.
With the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1967 Open Housing Act, this second dimension slowly declined in importance and is now almost totally absent. Race related issues – affirmative action, welfare, Medicaid, subsidized housing, etc. – are now questions of redistribution. Voting on race-related issues now largely takes place along the liberal-conservative dimension and the old split in the Democratic Party between North and South has largely disappeared. Voting in Congress is now almost purely one-dimensional – a single dimension accounts for about 93 percent of roll call voting choices in the 108th House and Senate – and the two parties are increasingly polarized.
ou.edu
-- Carl
P.S. Note that Republican administrations end up running larger deficits than the Democrats but this is due to the cyclic nature of the economy. Democrats always get elected at economic bottoms, Republicans take over at economic tops.
Note that the famous "Cross of Gold" speech was, characteristically, by a Democrat:
en.wikipedia.org |
