...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...
Words: 999 - Pages: 4
...PRO Resolved: On balance, the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is undemocratic. We affirm. To better the round, we clarify the following: First, the definition of “election process” ELECTIONS are based on three organizing concepts: equal respect, free choice, and popular sovereignty are the building blocks of fair and just elections. The democratic process should treat all citizens as free and equal persons. As applied to the electoral process this requires that each citizen equal opportunity to have his or her vote equally counted. Contention 1: Super PACs decrease voter turnout Subpoint A: Voter turnout is a pre-requisite to the election process A flourishing democracy presupposes citizens who care, who are willing to take part, and who are capable of helping to shape the common agenda of a society. Participation through the act of voting, is always seen as an essential prerequisite of stable democracy. Subpoint B: Super PACs decrease voter turnout by 25% “Unlimited spending by supposedly independent super PACs is creating widespread perceptions of corruption and undermining public confidence that elected officials serve in the public interest, The perception that super PACs are corrupting government is making Americans disillusioned, and an alarming number say they are less likely to vote this year. Americans say they are less likely to vote because big donors to super PACs have so much more influence over elected officials...
Words: 1247 - Pages: 5
...in the United 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...
Words: 1608 - Pages: 7
...protecting the minorities (Donnelly and Rosen, Political Polarization Killed the Filibuster). In the beginning the minority never had to use the filibuster, legislation issues could be dealt with and moved past rather efficiently, but with increasing polarization in the government, the filibuster now has to be used (Donnelly and Rosen, Political Polarization Killed the Filibuster). Once the senate began to be concerned about the continuous obstruction that the minorities were causing with the filibuster, action was taken to curb the minorities power (Donnelly and Rosen, Political Polarization Killed the Filibuster). This action was...
Words: 734 - Pages: 3
...Since the dawn of America there have always been major political divisions within both the government and between the American citizens. These issues have ranged from whether it was right to break off from the British Empire, to legalizing gay marriage in all fifty states. And while for some issues, controversial as they may be, both the people and the government were able to ignore their differences and work on a proper solution. However, in recent times, this unified approach to solving the nation’s problems has become a far rarer occasion, which is represented in the political polarization of the two primary ideologies in America: Conservatism and Progressivism. This polarization has lead the citizens of America to essentially coalesce into two major groups, the Democratic and Republican Parties. These groups have been at each other’s throats in recent times, as shown in the congressional...
Words: 486 - Pages: 2
...elections Republicans won big, taking full control of the Senate and the House. There are many factors that led to these results and clearly shows the country’s disapproval of the Obama administration. Polarization, demographics, and strong opposition towards the president definitely contributed to the Republican victory over both houses of Congress and will surely result in gridlock; stalling the country from progressing successfully. Demographics may have contributed to the enormity of democratic loss in this past election. The populous, liberal, diverse cities that would increase the Democratic vote had one of the lowest voter turnouts, whereas southern states that would vote Republican came out with the highest voter turnout. A vast majority of these southern voters are old, white Republicans. The young students, the post- generational college students, the minorities – these are the ones that share the same political ideologies as the democratic party, but yet they’re the ones that didn’t vote. Voter turnout for the 2014 Midterm elections was the lowest in 70 years – only 36.4% of voting-eligible Americans went out and voted on November 4th; of those voters, 75% were white (Alter, 2014). Liberal states like New York and California had a decrease in voter turnout while Southern states saw an increase, “Democrats were hindered by their inability to persuade members of the coalition that delivered the White House to Mr. Obama — young voters, women and minorities — to turn out at...
Words: 1283 - Pages: 6
...is. Even though many presidents including Obama tried to adopt the immigration reform, the policy has been murky since Naturalization Act of 1790. The federal 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...
Words: 2685 - Pages: 11
... 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...
Words: 6461 - Pages: 26
...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...
Words: 2870 - Pages: 12
...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...
Words: 1263 - Pages: 6
...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...
Words: 1421 - Pages: 6
...North and South Korea were divided along the 38th parallel, it has been continued for 70 years. The reunification of Korea has been controversial for decades, and the interest and expectation of unification has been growing after the reunification of Germany. As the expectation was growing, the problems that can be raised from the United Korea have been discussed (Cumings, 2010). Different political view, national economic status, and cultures between North and South Korea can cause serious problems, and it can possibly leads the United Korea to be undeveloped country. North Korea have been living in the communist political system. In North Korea, people are brainwashed in communism and restricted the basic human rights under severe monitoring system of government. Unlike North Korea, South Korea emphasizes the implementation of human dignity and support the freedom and equality by supporting the liberal democracy (Shuja, 2003). The extreme polarization of political view can cause staging a coup and even cause assimilating one to the other. The unification of Germany shows how the national unification cause a severe economic depression. The united Germany ended up mass unemployment, and the unemployment cause increasing in suicide rate (Kaiser). The critical different economic status and the cost of unification can result in economic aggravation. According to Woolf, "In then-current dollars, the estimates cover an enormous range between $400 billion and $3.6 trillion" (2006)...
Words: 434 - Pages: 2
...On Hertzberg and the Revamp of the U.S. Constitution Since its inception, the United States Constitution has been subjected to series of amendments over different time periods. Robert A. Dahl, in his book entitled How Democratic Is the American Constitution (2001), goes beyond discussing the relatively common pattern of constitutional amendment by arguing that major changes may be necessary to rescue the Constitution from its long-standing defects. Reviewing Dahl’s work through the essay “Framed Up: What the Constitution Gets Wrong,” author Hendrik Hertzberg traces the undesirable historical and political implications of the structure and content of the Constitution. Affirming Dahl’s position, Hertzberg suggests that the U.S. Constitution is a historically imperfect document with certain loopholes in its language, provisions, and direction, which allow undemocratic structures/processes and inefficiencies in government. While Hertzberg’s direct arguments are generally persuasive, the implicit suggestions of his views regarding the flaws and less favourable implications of the U.S. Constitution provide stronger support for introducing major changes into this document. As suggested earlier, it not difficult to agree with Hertzberg’s assumptions that the U.S. Constitution needs to be overhauled. Hertzberg identifies a historical ground for justifying substantial changes to the Constitution: individual Amendments were inadequate in defining the tasks and limitations of the judiciary...
Words: 1622 - Pages: 7
..." Technology engulfs our lives, consuming every minute of every day. We attend school, use technology for learning, and return home to our warm beds and laptops filled with our favorite Netflix shows. However, uses of technology can range from harmless to extremely dangerous. With a high potential for threats against national security being formulated online, a discussion over monitoring the internet has erupted. However, this debate simply boils down to priorities. In order to prioritize the nation as a whole, one has to sacrifice a small amount of their own personal independence and privacy. The government of the United States, on all levels, should have the power to view all messages communicated across technology in order to protect national security....
Words: 655 - Pages: 3
...‘The broken branch’, to what extent is this a fair assessment of Congress? (45 Marks) Within the constitution, the power of Congress first appears in Article 1, Section 1, ‘all legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States’. This suggests that congress has huge amounts of power Congress in creating legislature, scrutinizing the executive and playing a huge role when it comes to the checks and balances of the three branches of government. However, in recent times, many people argue that congress is ‘broken’. One of the biggest examples of this is the increasingly poor legislative record. Although there is going to be a big bias within congress, especially with the Republicans now controlling both chambers, this essay will look at both sides of the argument and help me decide on whether Congress is, in fact, broken. Time magazine recently stated that congress is now less popular than the Internal Revenue Service and, even more startlingly, Donald Trump! In 2013, congress only had a 6% polling, the lowest it had ever been, and the only other group of people to have a lower approval rating was the Kardashian family, quite disgraceful. Congress is supposed to be the most important branch of Government. It creates legislation, scrutinizes the executive and sets out the budget along doing many other important things. The fact that the approval rating now stands at 13% is very shocking. Mark Twain once said ‘Suppose you were a member of congress...
Words: 1220 - Pages: 5
