Political party and personal ideology: There’s a difference

In a letter to a future Continental Congress colleague, John Adams wrote, “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”

Adams, as did nearly every Founding Father, loathed the idea of political parties and partisan politics. He understood that when a people becomes focused on Federalist versus Anti-federalist, Republican versus Democrat, left versus right, they can easily lose sight of right versus wrong.

Unfortunately, it’s quite evident that, in this election cycle in particular, this understanding has been lost. Gradually, we’ve become entirely fixated on ridiculously unfounded partisan loyalty and have prioritized party over ideology. Worse, we have largely forgotten that a clear difference exists between the two terms.

Political ideology is a certain, unique, personal collection of values and beliefs that one possesses. It’s an internal perspective of best practices and approaches to policy. There exists a myriad of ideologies as every person has slightly differing beliefs and values based on their unique perspectives and individual backgrounds.

Political parties are formally established, faction-based organizations that champion a fixed set of political interests and advance those particular agenda components as on-message promotion. We must be wary not to conflate or confuse the two terms to any greater a degree than we already have.

Parties endorse political candidates and it’s quite unclear whether elected representatives control their party’s message or vice versa. In fact, one could argue that today, it’s unclear whether parties control individual’s personal political and ideological decisions to a certain extent. This is the sad but true reality.

We now possess an entirely unfounded inclination to just throw away or depreciate our personal values and simply “get in line” for one of the major political party agendas. We try our best to fit into a box of what’s popular, what either one or the other conversely opposing political parties decide is the appropriate stance on particular issues.

Instead of attempted partisan conformity, we should be expending our time and energy identifying our own personal beliefs and values and subsequently developing best practices for the country as a whole.

I have found this idea best summarized into a single statement by Jack Kemp, the Vice Presidential candidate on the losing ticket of the 1996 presidential election and the original pioneer of “compassionate conservatism” — a political ideology that is all but extinct today.

While I completely understand that we have undoubtedly, though quite unfortunately, established a two-party political system here in America, I believe we have overwhelmingly neglected our ideology, on a personal level, for polarizing partisan conformation. This has really resulted in a loss of individual identity in politics. We have lost a sense of what we believe, personally, is right for the country.

Kemp made an appearance at the Public Policy Foundation in October of 1993. There, he said the following quotation that epitomizes the aforementioned concept:

“I don’t see the issues in the world today so much from the spectrum of right/left as I do the ultimate definition of whether or not they lead to progress or take people back.”