Final paper notes - Dr. Drew Westen, Section 3: Psychology of Political Persuasion; Spring Semester PDF

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Dr. Drew Westen, Section 3: Psychology of Political Persuasion; Spring Semester 2021...

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What’s more effective → bi-partisan compromise or AOC like stances of making large, sweeping changes - Manchin vs. AOC approaches - More about legislation and less about elections - Messaging around it - Same goal but diff approacheS - What conditions is it more useful to go for the policy you want vs. more helpful to go more middle ground - Gun control - People support an assault weapons ban but it’ll never pass in congress - Stimulus bill - Try to find some patterns in when comprising works vs going full steam ahead

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/587483.pdf?casa_token=tDhhhMtyp-4AAAAA:Elb4dygnYwZCfzXgP5 C62X3LJAU1b9JN5aWt1GSOcyBwB-3PhdpZfuc2c99U1l6JBA6pqZKqezoO4_0C8pG6qLDZ9NHpvM vLRMey34-KwinaiMTBiGgThe Radical Right: A Problem for American Democracy https://www-nature-com.proxy.library.emory.edu/articles/d41586-019-02738-7 ●

“So do we work within the system, or overthrow it?” ○ “We can, after all, work within the system (organizing, voting, demonstrating and using all the levers of democracy) while seeking to change it (for example by routing corporate money out of politics through regulations and governmental reform).”

How is America’s two-party system the downfall of a representative American democracy -

Does this explain why certain notions that are mainly supported cannot pass in congress The house and senate are BUILT to favor republicans - Gerrymandering

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40711882.pdf?ab_segments=0%2FSYC-5770%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastl y-default%3A0f9895e36aa154a5b95755c60248039f America’s Two-Party System: Friend or Foe? By David Dulio and James Thurber ● This article argues in FAVOR of a two-party system ● American democracy was founded upon a two-sided, or two-party, debate (Dulio and Thurber 770) ○ The federalists and anti-federalist debated and bargained while shaping the nation’s fundamental structure and governmental basis.

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Federalists, such as Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, pushed for a strong national government, while anti-federalists worried that the Constitution would not protect the rights of individual states (Dulio and Thurber 769) “The concepts of debate, bargaining, and compromise between two opposing points of view were at the center of decision-making and the political culture in the United States even before the first Congress was sworn in or George Washington took the Oath of Office” (Dulio and Thurber 770)

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.7864/j.ctt7zsvt8.4.pdf?ab_segments=0%2FSYC-5770%2Fcontrol&ref reqid=fastly-default%3A0f9895e36aa154a5b95755c60248039f The Evolving American Political Party System by John S. Jackson ● “Complex organizations, like the two major American political parties, can attempt to preserve the status quo and survive in their traditional patterns, or they can change in the face of new demands” (Jackson 2) https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1811177.pdf?ab_segments=0%2FSYC-5770%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastlydefault%3Ada08c6a6f7f3d002b4e64fb567dc9b6a Credibility and Policy Convergence in a Two-Party System with Rational Voters by Alberto Alesina Doubting America’s Sacred Duopoly: Disestablishment Theory and the Two-Party System by Brian P. Marron (pdf saved on comp) ● The founders of the United State’s democracy “trusted that future citizens would be able to defend themselves against government coercion and abuse of power” (Marron 304). ○ “Since then the wall against misuse of power has worn thin by strategic, yet benevolent, political behavior primarily by elected officials and their appointees” (Marron 304) ○ “The ability of the citizenry to safeguard their liberty through the process of elections has atrophied” (Marron 304) ● “The most blatant example is the decay of traditional democratic values underlying our electoral process” (Marron 304) ○ American democracy “has been infected by a strain of election law that effectively entrenches two groups in power – the Democratic and Republican parties.” (Marron 304) ○ “These laws grant competitive advantage to the two major parties and violate the democratic principles held by the founders and embodied in the First Amendment” (Marron 304) ○ Our founding fathers and original texts outlining the structure of our democracy did not intent for such a stark divide between two political parties ■ This duality has been entrenched through years of unending election laws and restrictions placed on the American people ○ “When public policy ideas are sifted through only two partisan filters the remaining ideas are inevitably limited” (304) ■ “The major parties have continued their dominance by limiting potential competition” (304) ○ “The fairness and integrity of the electoral system is the final line of defense between the people and the misuse of power feared by the founders” (305)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/opinion/trump-republicans-scarcity.html?searchResultPosition=1 The End of the Two-Party System ● In an opinion piece for the New York Times, David Brooks theorizes that America’s modern democracy will crumble if the two-party system is not eventually abandoned. ○ Both the Democratic and Republican parties are progressively becoming less united, with the more radical members of each party veering further to either extreme. ○ This progression is not sustainable. ○ The United States will eventually reach a point where the two-party system does not, and can not, effectively represent the political voices of Americans. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/world/europe/as-european-voting-fragments-days-of-single-party-r ule-fade.html?searchResultPosition=12 ● “The fragmentation of traditional party voting is increasing all over Europe” ○ “Fueled by the last recession and enabled by social media, issue-oriented or protest parties have cropped up everywhere in response to the failure of governments to deliver economic growth and security”...