Читать книгу Keeping the Republic - Christine Barbour - Страница 56

Americans share a political culture (27)—common values (27) and beliefs, or normative (28) ideas about how life should be lived, that draw them together. The U.S. political culture emphasizes procedural guarantees and individualism (28), the idea that individuals know what is best for themselves. The core values of American culture are democracy, freedom, and equality, all defined through a procedural, individualistic lens.

Within the context of our shared political culture, Americans have divergent beliefs and opinions, called ideologies (30), about political and economic affairs. Generally these ideologies are referred to as conservative (31) and liberal (31), but we can be more specific. Depending on their views about the role of government in the economy and in establishing the social order, most Americans can be defined as one of the following: economic liberals (31); economic conservatives (32), including libertarians (32); social liberals (32), including communitarians (32); or social conservatives (32). Others may support authoritarian populism (35), a movement whose underlying values are not democratic. In a two-party political system like ours, it can be hard for either party to maintain the support of a majority when ideologies are so diverse.