Democratic and Republican parties have been able to maintain their strength and their membership numbers since the Civil War for both structural and ideological reasons. The ideological reasons are the most obvious to an observer and to many members of the parties; indeed it is because of the ideological positions of the two parties that people align themselves by party. The ideologies of each party are complex; a better way of describing them might be that they are intricate combinations of different ideas and ideologies. The Republican Party has consistently championed economic systems that do not favor efficient distributions of wealth and has tended toward a low degree of government intervention and regulation in economic issues and a high degree of intervention and regular in social affairs (such as abortion and civil rights). The parties endure because these ideologies (which are tied to ongoing concerns and beliefs) endure.

Single-member district...
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