Politics play a pivotal role in the life of every individual, for governments make decisions that influence people’s everyday lives. However, not everyone clearly understands what political ideology they support. In this paper, I elaborate what ideology I adhere to, explain its origins, and try to understand its future prospects.
On the whole, I was not particularly surprised that I belong to the supporters of Liberalism. This is because I have always supported the view that an individual needs to have personal freedoms, such as freedom of speech, freedom of views, or freedom of religion, and I also believe that people should be equal regardless of the ethnicity or gender they belong to. I started identifying myself with this ideology several years ago, when I read several articles on Wikipedia about Liberalism and understood that it basically supports freedom and equality, which I am also a proponent of. My support for Liberalism means that I am opposed to various reforms and orders that are incongruent with freedom and equality (Skinner, 2012). For instance, I do not support President Trump’s “Muslim ban.” On the other hand, I would support legislation that promotes equality and gives rights to various minorities that are oppressed.
When it comes to the origins of Liberalism, this ideology has its roots in European philosophical thought of the Age of Enlightenment. One of the fathers of liberalism is an English philosopher John Locke. He believed that every man had a right to life and freedom, as is stated in his Two Treatises on Government (Locke, 1689/2009). At that time, liberalism emerged to oppose the traditional monarchies and the unlimited rule of kings. Later, in the American Revolution in 1776 and in the French Revolution in 1789, liberalism was the ideology of those who opposed the existing regimes. Those two revolutions had a colossal impact on the future history, and later, liberalism became one of the main ideologies in the modern world (Skinner, 2012).
On the whole, it might be possible to state that the prospects for the future success of Liberalism are quite reassuring. Although not all parties that call themselves Liberal are such, Liberalism is still quite a dominant ideology in the Western world, even though its opponents often like to state that Liberalism is at an end (Deneen, 2018). When speaking about voters, it may be possible to hypothesize that the percentage of voters supporting this ideology in the U.S. will increase, at least because historically, the support for the ideology that a current President represents tends to decrease, and the support for the opposing ideology tends to grow; and the current President was proposed as a candidate by the Republican Party, and is distinctly non-Liberal, so the support for the Democratic Party (which supposedly represents Liberalism) is likely to grow. Also, the support for Liberalism might grow because the current President introduces numerous unpopular reforms.
If the support for Liberalism grows, it is likely that more people will side with the Democratic Party in the next presidential elections. It might even happen so that the Democratic Party will select its next presidential candidate from the group of more liberal politicians, such as Bernie Sanders, rather than more conservative individuals, such as Hillary Clinton.
Thus, I support the ideology of Liberalism. It emerged in the Age of Enlightenment, and gradually spread over the Western world. Today, it remains one of the main ideologies on the globe. It might be anticipated that the support for Liberalism will grow further in the future.
References
Deneen, P. J. (2018). Why liberalism failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Locke, J. (2009). Two treatises on government: A translation into Modern English. (L. F. Abbott, Trans.). Manchester, England: Industrial Systems Research. (Original work published 1689).
Skinner, Q. (2012). Liberty before liberalism. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.