【正确答案】 Political parties are organized groups of people who share a set of ideas about how the United States should be governed and who work together to have members of their group elected in order to influence the governing of the country. When members of a political party form a majority in Congress, they have great powers to decide what kinds of laws will be passed.
   Today, the United States has two major political parties. One is the Democratic Party, which evolved out of Thomas Jefferson's party, formed before 1800. The symbol of the party is the donkey. The other is the Republican Party, which was formed in the 1850s, by people in the states of the North and West, such as Abraham Lincoln, who wanted the government to prevent the slavery from expanding into new states then being admitted to the union. The symbol of the Republican Party is the elephant.
   Most Americans today consider the Democratic Party the more liberal party. By that they mean Democrats believe the federal government and the state governments should be active in providing social and economic programs for those who need them, such as the poor, the unemployed or students who need money to go to college. The government under the Democratic Party established many other programs, including Social Security, which ensures that those who are retired or disable to receive monthly payments from the government. Republicans are not necessarily opposed to such programs. They believe, however, that many social programs are too costly to the taxpayers and that when taxes are raised to pay for programs, everyone is hurt. They place more emphasis on private enterprise and often accuse the Democrats of making the government too expensive and of creating too many laws that do harm to individual initiative. For that reason, Americans tend to think of the Republican Party as more conservative.
   Though there are some specific differences in their policies, the two parties are not fundamentally different. First, from the aspect of ideology, both the parties' policies and modes of organization reflect American individualism. Second, from the aspect of class foundation, they both represent the capitalist class and defend capitalist democracy. These differences are actually the operation basis for the two parties to take turns on office.