490 essay

Reagan vs Trump (party labels fail)

Reagan gave amnesty, Trump restricted immigration — both were called conservative, so party platforms cannot define ideology.

• however party positions fall apart overtime

Conservatism and liberalism are deeper than party platforms. They are psychological, moral, historical, and worldview differences that exist across time.

Conservatism

Society is fragile, tradition holds wisdom, change should be slow, hierarchy is natural, human nature is limited.

 Edmund Burke and Michael Oakeshott

Liberalism

Liberalism emphasizes rights, equality, consent, challenging hierarchy, and seeing change as progress.

John Locke and John Stuart Mill

Moral Foundations (Haidt)

Liberals use Care/Fairness

Conservatives use all five foundations (care, fairness, loyalty, authority, purity)

Parties change, but moral instincts don’t.

• Helps us understand why political debates feel moral, not merely political 

• Why each side thinks the other is immoral

Worldview Theory (Hetherington)

Authoritarian worldview values order and strong leaders;

Libertarian Worldview values diversity, and independence

When people feel threatened they become more authoritarian → more conservative 

Threat (9/11, recession, demographic change, Covid) increases authoritarianism, which explains both conservative shifts and Trump’s appeal.

• Sensitivity to threat 

  • When people are threaten people order stability → conservative

Personality Theory (Openness vs Conscientiousness)

Openness predicts liberalism → curiosity , imagination, acceptance

Conscientiousness predicts conservatism → stability and routine

This explains why ideology is stable over time, it is rooted in traits not just opinions

Similarities and Differences Across Theories

All theories show ideology is deeper than parties and rooted in stable worldviews, but each emphasizes a different mechanism (tradition, morality, threat, personality).

New Deal era (why psychology didn’t matter yet)

In the New Deal era, parties were mixed (conservative Democrats, liberal Republicans) and conflict was economic, not moral or identity-based.

Racial issues, cultural issues, and identity issues were not sorted

• so psychological theories did not map onto party labels.

Today’s issues (identity & culture activate psychology)

Today’s issues—immigration, race, gender, national identity—activate threat sensitivity, moral foundations, and worldview differences, making psychology central to politics.

Polarization is deeper, more emotional, and more personal than any time since the New Deal.

Social Identity Theory → Polarization

When party identity becomes a social identity

• Parties are sorted along moral foundations (care/fairness vs loyalty/authority/purity)

Issues have shifted from economic → cultural and identity

• These trigger moral intuitions, not just policy disagreement

This makes people view the other side as an out-group,

Worldview differences + identity produce deep polarization.