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Culture War The Myth Of A Polarized America Analysis

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In the article Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America, Morris Fiorina addresses the issue of the illusion of political polarization. Political polarization is the separation of political beliefs into two separate extremes. The main illustration Fiorina uses is the use the electoral map. The electoral map is used to gauge which party won an election or polling. This is depicted when the states turns red if a state votes for the majority Republican, or the turns blue if the state votes primarily Democratic despite if there is a close margin. Fiorina discusses the uses the illustration to present the false illusion of political division and the influence media has on the public. The strengths in the text are Fiorina’s ability to persuade the audience. The persuasiveness is achieved by relating to the people. This is achieved by using outrageous examples and using language such as “left-winged guerrillas” and “right-winged death squads” to refer to the opposing sides. Fiorina refers to political polarization as “sheer nonsense,” and uses derogatory wording causes the reader to have a negative view on political polarization and not want to be associated with such radical ideas. This set the stage for Fiorina to present his opinion as a …show more content…

The discussion of polling techniques relates because poll representations categorize people as for or against something, even when some people have no opinion. This supports Fiorina’s opinion, “The simple truth is that there is no culture war in the United states…”. The discussion of political influence is relevant because everyone has different opinions about everything. The different opinions are based upon political influences the person has encountered throughout their life. The discussion of media types and power is important because media influences the opinion of the

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In the article, “The Case for Partisanship” by Matthew Yglesias, he explains how in the 1950’s, the American Political Science Association’s Committee strongly presented the idea that polarization is good. Today, many people look down upon political polarization. The mid-20th century appeared united politically but in fact the country was deeply divided over civil rights and politics. Conservatives and liberals could appear in both the Republican and Democratic parties due to foreign policy and racial issues overlapping on traditional conservative and liberal beliefs. The interconnection of political parties in the past has suddenly gone down.

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He also points out differences between liberal and more conservative parties. Through these topics, he informs the reader of his opinions regarding problems in American politics; the equality of people governed and the divide amongst political parties. To begin his discussion, Berry describes how everyone has to pick a side in politics. He discusses the lack of understanding of what it really means to be in a particular party by saying, “It doesn’t matter that neither of these labels signifies much in the way of intellectual

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(Collinson, Reston 2). These diction filled phrases help the audience understand the state of the Republican Party due to the negative connotation. The negative connotation allows the readers to understand the tiff that is occurring within the party and why many Republicans are worried about its future. The article describes the party as divided and using emotion-charged diction to support the claim allows the audience to connect with the

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The use of political ideologies allows him to demonstrate how the brain organization does not depend on upcoming experiences but past experiences (Hiadt 44). Liberals tend to be more open minded as for conservatives are more close minded. Haidt and Lakoff believe political ideologies demonstrate how individuals are divided into groups which leads to express and shape ideas differently, which help influence and drive the voters to present their support to either the liberals or the conservative candidate. Haidt and Konnikova give a great understanding of how the candidates strategies influence the publics support but Lakoff creates a stronger and clear argument of how the candidates vote for who their identity fit or in other

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A period that was supposed to be a “time of hope and rebirth,” with President Obama’s arrival into the oval office actually resulted in political polarization that had struck everyone in Washington and around the country (34). Leibovich

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Citizens of today’s society are convinced that they are divided tremendously. That the Republicans are so far right on the spectrum and that the Democrats are so far left on the spectrum that it is impossible for both parties to come to an agreement on any type of issue. If citizens dig deeper into the political world, they will find that there is not much of a difference between the two parties as they think. My job is to uncover what you may not know about politics, and have you see the opposing party 's view on the issues

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Over the last decade congressional polarization has increased at alarming rates causing Washington insiders and outsiders alike to worry about the future of American politics and democracy. While Democrats and Republicans on The Hill cannot agree on much, they both acknowledge that the increasing level of polarization in Washington is crippling the entire legislative branch, thereby undermining the greatest democracy in the world. Numerous public opinion polls, over the last few years, have shown that the vast majority of the American public, regardless of party affiliation, disapproves of, and feels unrepresented by, the extremely polarized legislature (Gallup, 2016). However, year after year, despite how many Americans become disgruntled

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We hear Democrats blaming Republicans for legislative stagnation and the rise in unemployment. The main effect of these occurrences is known as party polarization, a phenomenon in the United States where the two main political parties are seen as polar opposites of each other and therefore highly discouraged from collaborating or uniting. Party polarization causes a person’s political beliefs and ideals to be defined by the political party they identify with. There are many reasons for this devotion to a party’s political standpoints, such as regional and/or cultural differences, the desire for an increase in each party’s power and influence by special interest groups, and the general narrowing of political parties into the two-party system.

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(2007) find that redistricting has significant but “modest” effects on incumbents’ stances. Theriault’s (2006) analysis emphasizes that redistricting, political sorting, and ideological migration only explain close to 25% of polarization in the House and just five percent in the Senate. McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal (2009) find almost no evidence of polarization being caused by gerrymandering. Masket, Winburn, and Wright (2012) conclude that redistricting has minimal

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Political elites are the ones who are the most polarized. They tend to be more extreme in their political views than the people who they represent. As Fiorina has stated, people tend to view themselves as centrists or people who have moderate political views. Since the 1960s, political officials have been increasing polarized. At the same time, the political views of average Americans are approaching the same ideals despite age, education, religion, and region.

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Society and culture have always had an impact on politics and how the world is governed. Technology has advanced rapidly over the past century and is responsible for causing many changes to the world as we know it. Propaganda and media in general have always shaped the view of the American public and their political opinions. Society and culture has affected American politics since 1953 by giving the all citizens an opportunity to grow, prosper, and gain equal rights up till now. Television took place of the radio as the main form of home entertainment.

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Americans are continuing to become apathetic to politics compared to Americans in the 1950s. It is important to find the reason why this phenomenon is currently over taking the United States otherwise it will grow to become more problematic. I have an idea that this new apathetic attitude towards politics is rooted in the media and political leaders. It has been discussed how are there are numerous theories of media bias and proof political leaders do not always speak the truth on various issues. A growing number of Americans are not able to pick out these falsities from the media which could be a caused by a lack of education.

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How is Polarized Politics Strangling Political Trust in our Nation? The increase of legislative polarization tracks the decline in political trust. Aggregate measures of polarization show lower trust in government from 1958 (the first year the trust question was included in the survey conducted by American National Election Study) to 2012 (the most recent survey). There is also a powerful relationship between polarization and economic inequality.

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American History Education Reforms The definition as well as the specific parts of accurate American history is a highly debated topic- especially in regards to educating children on American history. In “Let’s tell the Story of All America’s Cultures” by Yuh Ji-Yeon gives her point of view on the controversial topic of the success of American history education. As the author is a Korean immigrant she has a special connection to this topic, and is writing this article to giver her opinion in the debate of reforming education in America. Ji-Yeon successfully persuades the audience that American history education in the United States is discriminatory by using her personal experiences and emotions as she informs the audience of a possible solution

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