Partisanship and American Politics - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Partisanship and American PoliticsKatie PistininziVirginia Commonwealth University

Thesis Statement: This is the most polarized America has been. This polarized partisanship negatively affects American politics, and we should look at other alternatives to the two party system in America Slide2

Does Partisanship Affect American Politics?Slide3

THE EFFECT OF MODERN PARTISANSHIP ON LEGISLATIVE EFFECTIVENESS IN THE 112TH CONGRESS By: SENATOR OLYMPIA J. SNOWECredibility: experience in congress and is well known for her bipartisanship, and named one of America’s best senators by Time Magazine.

“what occurs in Congress today is what is often called “political messaging.” Rather than putting forward a plausible, realistic solution to a problem, members on both sides offer legislation that is designed to make a political statement. Specifically, the bill or amendment is drafted to make the opposing side look bad on an issue and it is not intended to ever actually pass.” Examples: healthcare reform law, paycheck fairness act

“Both parties expect that the other party will fully exploit its procedural rights, leaving each side to take increasingly aggressive steps that anticipate and attempt to undercut the other party’s tactics.”

“parliamentary arms race between the two political parties and their leaders,”

This allows me to argue some of the affects this partisanship has on congress. Slide4

Partisanship in Perspective By: Pietro S. NivolaCredentials: He has a lot of education and background teaching, and writing about different government issues and policies. Also the Journal that published his article is well known and very well respected journal regarding political discussion.

““party government” tends to be exclusionary. Each party pursues its own agenda when in power, and sidelines the minority”

“Political scientists have several

explanations for this increasing polarization. The first has to do with regional re-alignments: Democrats have lost their old lock on Southern conservatives, and Republicans no longer have an appreciable foothold among Northern liberals

.”

“The steady migration of religiously inclined voters to the GOP, and of more secular voters

to the

Democratic Party, has widened the gulf between the parties on a range of social issues.

“the anti-partisanship argument goes, such one-party undertakings may prove unbalanced and unstable over time. Without bipartisan ballast and buy-in, critical legislation is more likely to be upended or hobbled when its opponents regain power

.

“One clear virtue of more partisan government is that it offers relatively clear accountability

.”

“

voters know whom to blame. And in a viable democracy, with free and frequent elections, the people have ample opportunity to modify, reject, or overturn what they no longer desire

.”

“…….

Democratic opponents of the Republican bill wanted the legislation to supply

more

funding. Had a compromise been struck with them, an already costly expansion of the public health-care system almost certainly would have been made even more lavish

.”

“

Although voters will often tell pollsters that they find the partisan posturing and squabbling of politicians disagreeable, the inconvenient truth is that more voters are motivated by the spectacle of partisan conflict than are discouraged by it. As differences between Republican and Democratic candidates grew more striking over the past three presidential elections, record numbers of people turned out to vote. The correlation is not coincidental; sharp distinctions help clarify choices, and clearer choices animate political participation.

“

“

George Washington used his farewell address to warn his countrymen “in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party.” But as James Madison understood, rival parties are not optional in a free society. They are an unavoidable product of human nature and political liberty

.

This source allows me to argue for and against partisanship in American government and also how each one of those effect congress and the people. Slide5

Title: In Defense of Partisan PoliticsAuthor: Pietro S. Nivola

Credentials: He has a lot of education and background teaching, and writing about different government issues and policies. Also the Journal that published his article is well known and very well respected journal regarding political discussion.

“

Because both parties are more cohesive, they are also more disciplined. If you are a member of Congress and you basically agree with your party’s position on most salient issues, why defect to the other side on key

vote”

“

One of the advantages of parliamentary democracy is that the electorate knows what to

expect”

“Accountability”

“

Voters have a tendency to become indifferent and apathetic when asked to choose between alternatives that display not “a dime’s worth of difference,” 

”

“

the voters have plenty of opportunity to change their minds. If they decide that mistakes are being made—or that they prefer an alternative agenda to the one being proffered by the party in power—they can throw the rascals out. Indeed, in this country, unlike practically every other democracy, the public gets a chance to entertain that option with extraordinary frequency: every two years

.”

This Allows me to argue the pros of partisanship Slide6

Why is Congress so Partisan and Polarized.Slide7

How did Congress get so polarized?By VIC FAZIOCredentials: Former US congressman, Fazio was a congressional and legislative consultant, He also sits on the Council on American Politics, bringing together leaders from across the nation to address issues facing the growth and enrichment of The Graduate School of Political Management at The George Washington University.

Biases: Democrat – may affect his views

“Our society is polarized for many reasons. Increasingly, we tend to live in enclaves of like-minded people. Other factors, like the churches we attend, the media we absorb, our workplace environments and even our schools contribute to a political culture with no center. As a result, redistricting has an easy time hardwiring the brand of representation in a vast majority of seats. And our weakened civic culture has exposed our political system to tremendous volatility in the aftermath of a shattering and lingering economic downturn.”

The media is not making it much better either, only focusing on the failure and bashing Washington rather than covering what is truly causing these bills to go through. For instance that some of them truly need long discussions and through thought. It’s not just the parties op[posing

eachother

, but the public would find failure in Washington more interesting so that’s what the media puts out.

This source allows me to argue that the reasons for a polarized congress and America can be attributed to us surrounding ourselves by like minded people, and the media encouraging this polarization and showing the failure in congress. Making the public distrust the process. Slide8

Partisanship in Perspective By: Pietro S. NivolaCredentials: He has a lot of education and background teaching, and writing about different government issues and policies. Also the Journal that published his article is well known and very well respected journal regarding political discussion.

“Political scientists have several explanations for this increasing polarization. The first has to do with regional re-alignments: Democrats have lost their old lock on Southern conservatives, and Republicans no longer have an appreciable foothold among Northern liberals.”

“The steady migration of religiously inclined voters to the GOP, and of more secular voters to the Democratic Party, has widened the gulf between the parties on a range of social issues.

This source allows me to argue some reasons as to why we have such increased polarization in congress and in the people. Slide9

The top 10 reasons American politics are so brokenBy Jonathan Haidt and Sam AbramsCredentials: Jonathan Haidt- He was named one of the "top global thinkers" by Foreign Policy magazine,[3] and one of the "top world thinkers" by Prospect magazine. He earned a BA in philosophy from Yale University in 1985, and a PhD in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. He then studied cultural psychology at the University of Chicago as a post-doctoral fellow.

Sam Abrams- AB, Stanford University. AM, PhD, Harvard University. Research Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Faculty Fellow at Center for Advanced Social Science Research at NYU, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations. A graduate of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government Program on Inequality and Social Policy and affiliate of Harvard's Canada Program and Institute for Quantitative Social Science. ( undergraduate discipline: Politics)

“There was once a time when Republican lawmakers counted a good number of liberals among them, and Democrats enjoyed the membership of many conservatives.”

“As the differences between supporters of the two parties became ever more pervasive and ever more visible to the naked eye, it became easier to spot members of the other team and then dislike them for the way they live.”

“Ethnic and racial distinctions are far from trivial, and many social scientists have noted that ethnic uniformity makes it easier for groups to reach agreement. The realignment of the parties has led to an increasing division by race, with the Republican Party becoming increasingly white.”

“you see that the parties have come to represent not just diverging material interests but different kinds of people with different moral values and ways of living. As these divisions have intensified, Americans have come to hate the other party and its members more and more”

“Democrats now really dislike the GOP and the people who support it. Republicans feel the same way about Democrats. The rising cross-partisan hostility injects partisan morality into more and more issues, and it puts pressure on lawmakers to not compromise.”

“Successful politicians are often extraordinarily skilled socially, and those skills help in the difficult work of forging compromises. But when politicians don’t get to use those skills, the system breaks down. “

“Now Americans can choose from hundreds of partisan news sources, many of which care more about arousing emotions than hewing to journalistic standards. This proliferation of sources interacts with the most notorious problem in human cognition: the confirmation bias. People rarely seek out evidence on both sides before making a decision on moral and political matters. Rather, they begin with their initial belief and then seek out evidence to confirm it.”

“As the costs of campaigns increased, politicians have become increasingly afraid of offending their party’s donors”

This source allows me to argue that this increased partisanship is due to The two parties purified themselves ideologically, As politicians polarized, so did many Americans, The urban-rural divide grew into a gulf, reflecting diverging interests and values, Immigration was rising, leading to larger racial and ethnic divisions, The net effect of all these trends is that partisans dislike one another more intensely, rule changes and culture changes in Congress made it harder to maintain cross-party friendships, rule changes and culture changes in Congress made it harder to maintain cross-party

friendships,As

the costs of campaigns increased, politicians have become increasingly afraid of offending their party’s

donors, Slide10

THE EFFECT OF MODERN PARTISANSHIP ON LEGISLATIVE EFFECTIVENESS IN THE 112TH CONGRESS

By: SENATOR

OLYMPIA J.

SNOWE

Credibility: experience in congress and is well known for her bipartisanship, and named one of America’s best senators by Time Magazine.

“The

magazine reported a similar trend in the House of Representatives

.

“The House in 1982 was chock-full of ‘Boll Weevils’ (

conservative Democrats

) and ‘Gypsy Moths’ (liberal Republicans),” as I can

personally

attest.“That

year’s National Journal ratings found 344 House

members whose

voting records fell between the most liberal Republican and the

most conservative

Democrat. Today, the number is 16,” which represents

less than

four percent of the entire

chamber.”

“the

political reality in many states has changed over

the past

few decades. There are fewer so-called “swing states” today, as

the“red

” states get redder and the “blue” states bluer

.” The

magazine reported a similar trend in the House of Representatives

.

This source allows me to argue some of the reasons why it is so polarized.Slide11

The Case for Transcending Partisanship By: Mickey Edwards

Credentials

: has experience in congress, and has served as co-chairman of Citizens for Independent Courts, which is a national organization that works to preserve judicial independence. Which tells me he is able to put his biases aside.

Also his article was published in the American Academy of Science, which is very credible.

“

“A political system like ours, in which candidates must first pass through the fire of partisan primaries, dominated by the most zealous and uncompromising of party loyalists, tends to weed out the “good government” candidates in favor of a warrior class that sees politics not as a search for the common good but as a series of pitched battles to defeat the “enemy” by any means possible. The general electorate may desire compromise, but to many of those who participate in the partisan primaries that determine the choices available to voters in the general election, compromise is viewed not as a desirable process of working together but as selling out, an unforgivable abandonment of principle

”

“

To some extent, the fulcrum point in this balancing act is where conservatives and liberals divide. The problem is that where emotion overrules analysis, where outcome outweighs process, the sides themselves become confused, and conservatives and liberals alike sometimes champion the right of the individual and sometimes the right of the collective to deny an individual a right to which he or she might otherwise be entitled. There is a confusing lack of consistency in determining where the common good lies

.”

“

Elected officials face other pressures to remain firmly locked in a partisan camp. In most states, congressional and state legislative districts are shaped by whichever political party holds a majority of state legislative

seats”

“

In each of these instances – the need to cater to party activists in partisan primaries, the influence of party-directed campaign funds, and the required allegiance to partisan positions – the ability to independently assess where the greater common good may lie is seriously compromised. Critical thinking requires the ability to question assumptions, including those that underlie one’s own preconceptions. Because determining what constitutes the common good is rarely a simple matter, anything that inhibits serious inquiry is more likely to perpetuate harm than to provide benefit, whether that bene- fit consists of expanding or constraining the role of government (so long, of course, as the action remains within the boundaries of constitutional permissibility

).”

“

The solution to this problem may be difficult to achieve, but it is easy to describe. We must restore civility to America’s public discourse, and we must reduce partisanship in governance. We must begin to make public decisions as Americans working together to address concerns rather than as members of rival armies doing battle over the trappings and privileges of power

.”

This source allows me to argue that partisanship has negative effects on Americans government it also gives me the ways in which to fix this partisanship. Though not quoted above it was many steps feel didn’t fit into the power point but alluded to in the last point Slide12

Alternatives to the two party system and our way of voting Slide13

Title: Debating The Two – Party SystemAuthor: Arianna Huffington Credentials: Creator of Huffington post well known, credible newspaper. Also was conservative commentator before switching to liberal politics and started the Web site 

The Huffington

Post

. Huffington

is also the author of more than a dozen books on topics ranging from feminism to corporate America to politics

“

 our current two-party system has failed

us. …….It

has ossified to the point where it can only deliver short-term fixes. It has led to entrenched thinking, complacency, and the deification of conventional wisdom — all conditions that have made it harder and harder to challenge a broken status quo

.”

“

In multi-party systems there are many people who also don’t feel that they’re represented by any of the parties. And I, having lived in a country that has 14 parties, can tell you that I didn’t find any that represented me. That’s a sort of inherent problem of democracy

.””

“

most politicians are “better people than one would anticipate,” but that the two-party system has become so polarized that even good people are driven to a lockstep groupthink that punishes those who have original, nonpartisan

idea”

“

the fact that members of the two parties no longer mix socially, saying: “it’s just like junior high

.””

“

Why are the too big to fail banks still too big to fail? Why is there still so little emphasis on jobs at a time when 26 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed? Why did our system recently fail us in three spectacular ways: the financial meltdown, the Upper Big Branch mining disaster in West Virginia where 29 miners died, and the BP oil spill in the

Gulf? Because

the two-party system is hopelessly broken — only capable of producing what Tom Friedman 

calls

 “sub-optimal solutions

”

This source allows me to argue against the two party system. Slide14

THE EFFECT OF MODERN PARTISANSHIP ON LEGISLATIVE EFFECTIVENESS IN THE 112TH CONGRESS By: SENATOR OLYMPIA J. SNOWECredibility: experience in congress and is well known for her bipartisanship, and named one of America’s best senators by Time Magazine.

“What our success in the future will require from its political leaders is cooperation, not confrontation; civility, not hostility; vision, not division. It will require a thorough and adequate review of how we consider legislation, including exploring potential changes to the filibuster, use of cloture, and ways to more consistently ensure the open amendment process that has been a hallmark and strength of the United States Senate. It will require a change in behavior, as members put partisanship aside for the good of the country—something that I strongly believe must be rewarded at the ballot box if it is to occur. And it will require the restoration of confidence in our nation’s leaders and our institutions. That confidence, I believe, will only be secured by evidence of a new and lasting bipartisanship among our leaders.

This allows me to argue some ways to fix this polarization. Things Congress needs to do as well as THE PEOPLESlide15

Two-Party Stranglehold: Alternative Voting Models to Open Up Electoral Process Author: Michele SwensonCredentials: Huffington Post is a credible newspaper “

Swenson has written extensively about issues of local community rights, single payer health care, and the corporate subversion of democracy and consequent wealth transfer

upward” she has done a lot of research regarding Christianity and politics

“Effectively

, the multi-party system becomes a single party controlled and driven by corporate money. Or, as 

Noam Chomsky

 describes, the two main parties, Democratic and Republican, have become two arms of the “Business Party

.”

“

“Yes-No” Voting say the opportunity to cast multiple “Yes” votes eliminates the need to settle for “the least of evils

,””

“

expands dialogue around issues previously narrowly defined by the two-party duopoly and their corporate masters, and the media that perpetuates the political status quo by narrowly depicting every major election as a two-horse race

.”

“

“Yes-No” voting option further carries the possibility of countering the distortion of big money in elections by permitting a “No” vote for every candidate who accepts big money, offering a partial antidote to influence peddling and corporate bribery

.

“

Oregon used 

approval voting

 in a statewide advisory referendum on school financing, presenting voters with five different options and allowing them to vote for as many as they wished

.”

“

He asserts that sabotage, polarization and lack of civility could be averted by permitting a voter to vote for more than one candidate. An example of sabotage is the ploy of spending Republican dollars to encourage Ralph Nader to run for the senate in Pennsylvania because some say that putting Nader on the ballot is 10 times more effective than spending on ads for a Republican candidate

.”

“

Atwood judges Approval Voting a remedy for such two-party voting pitfalls as the spoiler effect or the ostensible trade-off between “electability” and a wasted vote

.”

This source allows me to argue that there are alternatives to the two party system and our way of voting, which is causing most of our partisanship, and that they may be better. Slide16

Silverman, R. (n.d.). The Pros and Cons of a Two-Party System. Retrieved March 13, 2017, from https://www.academia.edu/5154376/The_Pros_and_Cons_of_a_Two-Party_System?auto=downloadThe information on this was suited for what I was looking for however the authors credentials were not.

S

he is most known for her

covering the

personalities and stories behind the art world, with a special focus on

photography. Slide17

Research News. (2015). Retrieved March 13, 2017, from http://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/about/news/2015/partisanship-polarization-congress-presidency.htmlThis article did not have enough information regarding polarization in congress. Did not go into detail of causes background and effects. Slide18

Gebelhoff, R. (2016, September 12). Opinion | Can we please stop complaining about our two-party system? Retrieved March 13, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/09/12/can-we-please-stop-complaining-about-our-two-party-system/?utm_term=.d462ec0dc176

Gebelhoff

writes for an opinion column therefore the article is opinion based and not fact based therefore not very reliable source.

Gebelhoff

only has experience in journalism and editing nothing really in political science. Slide19

Francis, D. (2014, May 16). For a democratic society, what other viable alternatives to political parties exist? Retrieved March 13, 2017, from https://www.quora.com/For-a-democratic-society-what-other-viable-alternatives-to-political-parties-existIt only briefly covers an option other than the two party system but doesn’t go into detail or give you much information Slide20

Campbell, J. E. (2016, June 30). The source of America's political polarization? It's us. Retrieved March 13, 2017, from http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-campbell-political-polarization-20160627-snap-story.html

This source was published in an opinion column. Though

james

Campbell is a credible source for political writing if it’s in an opinion column I don’t think it has to be backed up as much Slide21

Why is the United States becoming more partisan? (2014, June 25). Retrieved March 13, 2017, from http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/inside-story/articles/2014/6/25/is-the-united-statesbecomingmorepartisan.htmlThis article had no author and seemed to be someone just interviewing people of their opinions no hard facts. Slide22

Partisanship shapes beliefs about political and non-political issues, NORC survey finds. (2016, August 25). Retrieved March 13, 2017, from https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2012/11/09/partisanship-shapes-beliefs-about-political-and-non-political-issuesThis article really did not give me any information as to the effect of partisanship.