1.  Ideology is like a set of beliefs or ideas that people use to make sense of the world and decide how society should be run. It includes things like political and economic theories that influence how we think about government, laws, and social issues. For example, Liberals think the government should help people a lot, However, Conservatives believe that the government should stay out of people’s lives more often and let people take care of themselves. The excerpt “Democracy for the Few” by the author Michael Parenti helped me understand the differences in ideology between all the political parties because he goes into detail explaining them more specifically conservatives. For example, “Conservatives blame many of our troubles on what billionaire Steve Forbes called the“arrogance, insularity, the government-knows-best mentality” in Washington, DC.” This quote helped me understand that conservatives truly dislike a huge party having control over us. 

2. Conservatives believe in smaller governments and want them to stay out of people’s lives as much as possible therefore they just want more freedom. Liberals are the complete opposite and believe the government should definitely be bigger and more hands on therefore they believe in equality for all. An example that differentiates the two parts could be that liberals heavily believe in everyone having access to healthcare and conservatives heavily believe that taxes should be lower because they believe people should keep more of their own money instead of giving it away even if it’s back to the country. 

3. Althusser thought that ideology was like a set of ideas that shape how we see the world. These ideas aren’t just in our heads; they come from places like schools, churches, and the media. These places make certain ideas seem normal so that people accept them without thinking too much about it. So, ideology helps keep society running in a certain way.