Why do republicans support strong central government?...?
Your teacher is biased and wrong. Republicans are against a strong, central government. That is something Democrats favor. A typical Republican would say that the role of government should be as limited as possible. Conservatives support all working people, not just the rich. Your teacher's belief is just Marxist nonsense. It's a fact that lower taxes actually produce greater revenue for the government so actually it would be liberals and higher taxes that violate the social contract.
What people have traditionally supported Democrats? Republicans?
American people .
Anti-federalists, Federalists, Democrats and Republicans.?
In a way, yes. The early Republicans were Federalists in that they were strict constitutionalists. Of course, the constitution calling for a federal government with fairly strong power, they were federalists. Democrats were anti-federalists in that they wanted state power to be stronger. This would allow the states to decide one of the most important issues to early democrats, slavery. The first republican president, who I really hope you know who that is, used the power of the federal government to wage war on the southern secessionist states and consequently to establish slaves as citizens. The republicans fought hard for civil rights, especially in the south after the war, but lost the favor of African Americans and a lot of the country at the same time the democrats and republicans majorly switched their stances on federalism, The New Deal. Since then, Republicans have been campaigning against big government. Why this change? Because Republicans were never for a large federal government, they were for the limited federal government defined in the constitution. So, if the size of the federal government were again to shrink to, let's say, the size it was in the Articles of Confederation, Republicans would be calling for a bigger government again. Basically, to call Republicans federalists is not correct, they are constitutionalists. And to call democrats anti-federalists is also wrong, the main reason they were ever anti-federalist was to keep slavery alive in the south. And, after that failed, they sought a large federal government to try and control the people and create a more government-dependent nation by creating a safety net that many found too hard to resist. Unfortunately, in my opinion, that safety net was extremely thin, and it's many downsides are rearing their ugly heads today in the form of failing social security, overspent government, over-regulated business, over-dependence on the government and less freedom for the people.
Why do liberals and democrats believe in big government?
Your premise is incorrect and an echoing of GOP propaganda. Government has repeated grown more under GOP governance than under Democrat governance. Remember that before the GOP used ‘liberal; as part of their campaign strategy, that there were liberals in the Republican party. The Tea Party radicals purged them from the party. Our environmental and conservation (saving our wilderness) comes from the old Republican party.So what are the actual differences between the two parties as they now stand. Democrats core values are defending civil rights for all people. This spans gender, gender identity, race, religion, etc. Protecting the environment, giving us clean air, water, land and wilderness. Educating our people, giving every child and young adult equal quality education. Getting basic health care to all of our people. While both parties support our military, the Democrats focus on our soldiers while the GOP focuses on industry. Republicans increase the size of our government by increasing funding to industry and as I said that includes the military. Currently if you want to decrease our debt, the only way you can do that is to decrease military spending.To understand how much our military spending has gotten out of control, that spending is larger than all of our adversaries combined. You would have to include allies to make it equal. So we are basically putting ourselves against the entire world. We have enough nuclear weapons to blow the entire world up over 50 times. "At the beginning of World War II, we had a relatively small army, smaller than Portugal’s." — Ken Paxton on Friday, June 6th, 2014 in a speech at the Republican Party of Texas convention. Despite that we were able to change our industry almost over night and fight WWII. The GOP essentially supports corporate WELFARE. The military is forced to buy equipment, weapons, ships, aircraft, etc. that it does not want and cannot use. When they are forced to make cuts due to a sequester they eliminate soldiers. Our wealthiest corporations do not pay taxes and are in fact getting taxpayer money. President Clinton and Vice President Gore cut our regulations more than any Republican before or since. That administration eliminated our deficit spending and actually gave us a surplus. Our debt is the GOP debt and it comes from military spend and tax cuts to the 1%.So please don’t repeat the GOP propaganda. That bird won’t fly.