PLSI 200 Essay 1 - Grade: A PDF

Preview

Summary

Week 1-4 Essay...

Description

PLSI 200 Essay 1 Explain how American public opinion breaks down along lines influenced by geography, race, religion, and gender. What accounts for these differences and how do they seem to affect party affiliation and loyalty? (including recent polling regarding the presidential race) Public opinion of the Americans vary on multiple factors with geographic location, race, religion and gender being few of the noted demographic factors. The United States of America is a vast land and all its people will not necessarily think the same and hence, vote for the same candidate. The East for example, is an urbanized and cosmopolitan area. The high levels of awareness and education has made it to be a democratic region, as people tend to realize their political freedom there. Next comes the Midwestern areas containing the Rust Belt and the Corn Belt. The Rust belt symbolizes industries and the workers' union had an extremely strong hold there making it democratic. However, the weakening of the unions has made few areas turn into republicans hence, states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio or Michigan are called swing states. The Corn belt is the rural, small town farm states of the mid-West and their possible narrow exposure, deprivation and low levels of awareness has made them strongly republican. From the West, the Mountain West, Colorado, Montana for example, were strongly republican in the past, but as ranching, mining and farming has given way to retirement and recreation, it is now more divided. The Southwest region, Arizona or West Texas for example, were also strongly republican, but possibly changing towards democrats due to the rise in the number of Hispanic votes. The West Coast, similar to the East side, is strongly democratic. The South region mostly contains slaves and they have too faced deprivation all their lives hence, their possible conservativeness has made the South strongly republican. The Bible belt too, is strongly republican as people go to church the most in this region and hold extremely conservative thoughts. The swing states and the suburbs are the key factors in deciding the president. In 2020, Biden is leading Trump in the swing states, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and even the mainly republican Southwest and Mountain West seem to be divided for this presidential race. Considering race, African Americans have always supported the Democrats. Polls show that they are a bit more conservative than whites on social issues such as abortion and gay rights however, they are much more liberal on economic issues and support government social programs. Hispanics are mostly Catholic and tend to be socially moderate yet economically liberal hence, divided between the two parties however, in recent years as the immigration debate has come to the forefront Latinos have shifted heavily towards the Democrats with less than 30% voting Republican. Republicans did good with Latinos and were pro-immigration as businesses benefit from low immigrant wages. However, Republicans in recent years have take a more uniform and hard stand against illegal immigration and this has led to steady and significant declines in the Hispanic vote. Cuban Americans, however have been strongly Republican as most came to the U.S. to escape the communism of Cuba and see the Republicans as more comfortable for them. Asian-Americans are a relatively small group nationally that are somewhat split. VietnameseAmericans, same state as the Cubans have traditionally leaned towards Republicans however, this is less true among younger Vietnamese-Americans. Filipino’s lean heavily Democratic, and generally the recent immigrants tend to favor Democrats regardless of where they come from. In 2016, white, male non college graduates supported Trump the most with which we can infer that lack of education and lack of knowledge regarding political freedom can lead people towards conservativeness. For 2020, Biden is doing well but he needs to gain the Latinos' support. Even Sanders beat him in this regard in the primary season in few states, and his troubles with the latino may be due to them associating Biden with Obama as during his office, 3 million people were deported from the US. In terms of gender, women are 10% more democratic than men as they have suffered a lot due to sexism and disparity and democratic parties promote issues like equal pay, equal work, rules against sexual

abuse, affirmative action and a choice of abortion. In 2016, female voters were 62%, with 54% of them voting for Clinton, the democratic candidate from 2016 presidential race. In terms of religion, the Catholics are skeptical about social issues like abortion or gay rights however, they tend to be liberal on economic issues and generally vote for the democrats. Jews are the opposite of Catholics, pro for social issues but conservative on economic issues still, voting for the democrats. The evangelicals mainly vote for the republicans due to their very high church affiliation which connects to conservativeness, the Bible belt as an example....