...fought between those on either side, with the moderate middle becoming a no-man’s-land, is known by many to be political polarization. This polarization of politics creates countless inhibitions upon Americans seeking to be apart of the democratic process by inciting feelings of isolation if they hold a belief that does not cater to either extreme side of politics; in lieu of continuing to defend their beliefs not held by either side, individuals are more likely to denounce politics as a whole on account of feeling marginalized. This phenomenon betrays the cultural aspect of politics created by philosophers to empower the common man, by making him choose to subscribe to a set of ideals he may not entirely believe in. To mitigate someone’s voice into a contribution to a voting bloc is to dilute their humanity to the result on a ballot, further muddying political waters and causing peer pressure to support a certain party. This burden has slowly leaked into mainstream pop culture in America, extending the means by which Americans are being polarized. Pseudo-intellectual political talk show hosts will quip at the stupidity of their opposition, while the Parthenon of Twitter will tirelessly stream a fallacy of policy that demands support, leaving very little room for any set of ideals to exist on the middle ground. How could a young person choose? What could a political landscape so toxic be of use to anyone at any rate? Within this plight there is the answer; change only nascents...
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...The debate in America is based on polarization between the two major political parties: Republican (red states) and Democratic (blue states) Parties. Due to the presidential election results, there’s a division between the states that led to battleground. The "colors" of these states will not change. "While much "red and blue" ink has been spilled over whether elite polarization is mirrored by the public, existing research provides no consensus when it comes to answering this question. On the one hand, some scholars argue that if citizens take cues from party elites—as recent research suggests they do—then they should come to resemble party elites by becoming more ideologically oriented partisans" (Abramowitz & Saunders, 2008; Carsey & Layman, 2006; Hetherington, 2001). James Wilson, a political science...
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...States of America that public policy aggravates and intensifies economic inequality. Alternatively, it is also widely recognized that the "American Dream" has evolved from a goal to achieve into a standard of living. It is modernly expected to work hard throughout your life, save money, and attempt to succeed in any way that you can. For decades, many individuals in the United States of America chose to attend college as a means to create opportunities for success through their degrees- enough so that America became a frontrunner in the world ranks of higher education. However, throughout the last few decades, America has lost its lead. Legislation that had allowed many of the individuals to attend college...
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...It is very apparent that over the years, the American Political system has become biased. Offending one’s political party is like offending their character it seems. Where does this polarization come from? There are agreements from credible sources stating that American politics are very biased, and other agreements are made claiming polarized minds are caused from biological influences. But when it comes to who is guilty for creating this separation, there are many disagreements. American people have come to the general consensus that political parties are very biased. This causes an extreme sense of partisanship in daily arguments and other political conversations because people tend to take their stances so seriously, even if they do...
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...Political parties are a necessary evil. Even though parties place people into tiny, little boxes with labels, they also bring Americans together to standardize beliefs and unite us to become stronger. Political parties create a connection between politics and society. The parties speak for a particular set of standards or values and represent those with the same mindset. Political parties also recruit candidates to run for various forms of office. Without the use of parties we would have an unenthusiastic country, disinterested and uninvolved in our nation's politics. Finally, political parties give us a voice. With 8.406 million people in New York state alone, it's difficult to make your voice heard. Parties are the go between that allow us...
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...Throughout the past century, there have been boiling debates between the Democratic and Republican Party about ideological, cultural, and racial issues. Though these two parties may differ in certain beliefs, they still share a common ground and actually are not much different from each other. Therefore, in this paper I argue that the United States electorate is not polarized, or deeply divided. I base my argument from various tables shown in Morris P. Fiorina’s “From Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America,” which shows evidence of America not being polarized; as well as a table listed in Alan I. Abramowitz’s “The Polarized Electorate,” which shows how the information provided is biased and inaccurate in terms of justifying that the electorate...
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...government developed a cohesive procedure for naturalization. Immigrants at that time were granted citizenship after living in the U.S. for at least 2 years without criminal records. Every President since Dwight D. Eisenhower has taken executive action at some point regarding to immigration reform. With the last immigration reform act passed in 1986, the time to fix a broken immigration system is long overdue. Since the United States has been highly populated with diverse population including documented or undocumented immigrants, the government could have considered adopting the immigration reform specifically and permanently. Apparently, there are some reasons that take many years to process an immigration reform in Congress such as polarization in Congress, Federalism, courts’ decision, media impaction, and interest groups. It is hard to believe that why the government is not fully paying enough attention to immigration reform bill that is one of the most important not only for country itself but also for its economy. Now, we have estimated 11 million people living in shadows including men, women, and kids. There are many felons among these undocumented immigrants but ignoring this immigration reform will not solve any but it will gradually make people believe that the democracy even originated from here is weaker or the government is even more polarized than it is supposed to be for certain matter that will benefit the country...
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... most would reason. This conclusion is based on a consensus engulfing both academia and the popular press that democracy is at its best irrelevant for growth, and perhaps even a hindrance. For example, Tom Friedman wrote in the pages of The New York Times: One-party nondemocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century,” Friedman wasn’t making this up. Robert Barro, who has written several papers on the topic, argued in his book Getting it Right: Markets and Choices in a Free Society: More political rights do not have an effect on growth… The first lesson is that democracy is not the key to economic growth. A recent survey of the recent literature similarly concludes: The net effect of democracy on growth performance cross-nationally over the last five decades is negative or null. Equally dominant is the view that democracy isn’t right for low-income countries (which are often the ones trying to turn their societies into democracies). The pages of The New York Times again summarize what most of the popular press seems to have accepted as axiomatic, this time in the words of David Brooks defending the Egyptian military coup, It’s...
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...Junior Qualifying Exam Paul Gronke, Advisor Dan Toffey 27 March 2006 LITERATURE REVIEW OUTLINE Introduction I. History of 1994 (Bader 1996; Balz & Brownstein 1996) A. 1992 Presidential Election i. Democrat president ii. Full Republican Minority/Democrat Majority B. Newt Gingrich & GOP Leadership C. Contract with America i. How it was conceived ii. Who the main players were iii. Who/what decided what was on it (Lathrop 2003) a. Standard Republican issues b. Populist issues iv. How was it marketed v. Who it helped (Abramowitz 1995) vi. Why it worked a. Funneled money to needy campaigns (Abramowitz 1995) b. Stalled Democratic legislative initiatives ineffective (Jacobson 1996) c. Forced Democrats in competitive districts to retire (Jacobson 1996) D. Results of election II. Why was the 1994 Election a surprise? A. Conventional signals suggested nothing was out of the ordinary (Balz & Brownstein 1996; Campbell 1997) B. Inadequate models (Busch 1995) i. Not precise enough a. No measure for levels of animosity towards Clinton b. No measure of apathy towards Democrats ii. Too precise a. No attention to actual concerns b. Changing morals iii. Difficulty in accounting for Perot supporters in 1992 (Campbell 1997; Connelly & Pitney 1994) C. Convention of all politics being “local” (Jacobson 1996) D. Suppression of realignment (Campbell 1997) i. Suppressed by the strangle hold of Democrats in the South ii. The gains Republicans should’ve made there but didn’t because of weak challengers...
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...matters. In the US and the UK, the cultural wars are commonly as a result of the differences in the settings of the traditionalists and the conversationalists. In essence, the differences in the conservative and the progressive values has been the main bone of contention between these two different groups. The root of the differences can be traced to way back in the 1920s, when the rural and urban cultures had an evident conflict. There then followed immigration of people from different continents into America for several decades, causing further culture wars. The differences have always taken a center stage in the various debates especially those touching the issues of the history of public schools and the delivery of the science curriculum in the US and the UK. The realignment and the polarization that took place in the 1990s played a huge role in transforming the modern politics, economics as well as religion. In his 1991 publication, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America, James Hunter touches on a couple of issues that have since shaped the destiny of the US to be specific. According to him, culture wars date back to the 1960s. Key Issues that the publication looked at were: gun politics, abortion, and alienation of the church from the state machinery as well the issues of privacy of the American citizens. For each of the items, there were two opposing sides signaling the...
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...Huri Tursan, Democratisation in Turkey: The Role of Political Parties, Brussels: P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2004. Comparative studies on regime changes in Southern Europe and Latin America have shown the central role that stable and strong party systems play in the consolidation of democracy. Although Turkish political parties and the party system have received considerable scholarly attention, their impact on the country’s democratization process has not been systematically examined. Huri Tursan’s book seeks to fill this gap in the literature on contemporary Turkish politics. A modified version of the author’s doctoral dissertation written at the European University Institute in Florence, the study describes the historical evolution of political parties, with particular focus on developments concerning party politics since Turkey’s transition from an authoritarian one-party regime to a multi-party system in the late 1940s. The bulk of the book analyzes the changing electoral fortunes of the individual parties over the past five decades, the impact of the breakdowns of democracy through military interventions in 1960, 1971, and 1980 on party competition, and trends in the party system over the years. The analysis of the changes in the party system concerning volatility, fragmentation, and polarization constitute the book’s main empirical contribution. The picture that emerges from Hursan’s study is that of a party system which lacks strong and cohesive parties and which has experienced...
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...The need for reform of the immigration system in the United States Introduction The lack of results from the Obama administration on the overall reform of the immigration system of the United States is due to the inability of the immigration system to regulate increasing legal admissions and growth of irregular immigration of a regional provenance. The political viability of the reform depends on the consent of the elected Republican opposition. This has contributes to organize structural blockage for reform for over fifteen years, evidencing the high degree of polarization of the immigration topic issue in American society. Given the circumstances, the likelihood of a reform in the next years is very uncertain. This paper aims to explain the lack of results from the Obama administration on the reform of the immigration system. It will analyze first, the main motivation for reform of the immigration system: it has become unable to properly regulate a rapidly growing immigration. It will then offer, a series of explanatory reasons for failure: the low priority given to the immigration issue, errors, but especially the structurally cleaving nature of the reform. Why is the reform of the immigration system a necessity? The Characteristics of the US Immigration System To understand the need for reform of the US immigration system, it is necessary to go back to first principles ensuring its operation. The United States regulates the admission of foreigners on their territory...
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...respect for the land and animals of America. His hatred of greedy businessmen drove him to activism. In the executive realm, this meant using the federal government’s reach to protect vast swaths lands. Teddy’s vision was “conserving, and later, preserving nature for generations yet unborn” (Ruckelshaus 2016, 187); ultimately, 234 million acres of land was set-aside for the public (189). He was indebted to no large corporations, and hence, was able to focus on the long-term vision and impact that could be set by the presidency. The overall the Progressive Era proved to be a bright time for experts—on various issues including the environment—in government who participated in President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Brain Trusts” and President Wilson’s “the Inquiry” (Greenberg 2010, 205). All of this was possible due to Teddy Roosevelt, who embodied an early form of environmental populism...
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...between-subjects ANOVA and correlational analysis suggested that the Democratic Party and Republican Party are polarized in regards to racial issues. Moreover, conservative whites are the most likely racial group to hold racial prejudices against African-Americans. Finally, disapproval of President Obama is highly associated with high levels of negative racial stereotypes. Keywords: race, antipathy, conservatism, prejudices, Obama Is Racial Antipathy Increasing? The Polarizing Effect of Obama’s Presidency In 2008, Barack Obama became the first African-American to become President of the United States. His election marked a pivotal turning point in American politics. To millions, Obama’s election signaled the start of a post-racial America. The country was infused with euphoria as citizens from diverse backgrounds celebrated his historical victory. For a brief period, grievous injuries and acts of unkindness committed throughout America’s history were forgiven. Citizens who had constructed emotional barriers, in response to racial discrimination, now waved American flags proudly. Citizens...
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...lives of other people over one’s personal privacy, the government will be able to prevent a multitude of terror attacks from ever occurring. Allowing the government to monitor internet actions will not only prevent threats against national security, but create unity and trust in a divided nation. Currently, the divide between political parties is immense. The United States has seen acts of terror committed solely due to political party affiliation. However, by all agreeing on the value of human lives over privacy, unity can be established between all parties. The value of a human life is a value shared with all people, simply due to our own humanity. This issue should not be a political issue, but one we answer according to our own morality. If both parties answer this question using their morality, unity can be established. This subject can be the uniting force in the United States that can diminish conflicts between parties, and establish civil negotiations between people. Currently, both major political parties are stuck in a cycle of never ending arguments. This polarization has slowed down the political system, and caused the citizens of America to feel the consequences of the three branches’ inability to collaborate. By identifying the issue of internet monitoring, as not a partisan issue, but a moral question, parties can move past their cycle of bickering. Generally, humans require a common idea or belief in order to collaborate. With internet monitoring being a simple...
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