American Involvement In Politics

Politics is a dangerous topic: minefields to the left and right, shrapnel everywhere, and often the best opinion is no opinion. Dave Barry in “Now That’s It’s All Over, Let’s Eat!” approaches the modern American political apathy with a cynical eye. In 2012, before the second election of Barak Obama, Americans were feeling a lack of faith in the political system. The Democrats were demonizing Mitt Romney and the Republicans were bad-mouthing Obama. Barry says that the American response to all this drama should be to go watch football.

With America now in its very earliest days of being a new nation, any and all actions taken by the government would have lasting impacts on the development of the country and, going forward, would set a precedent for the future. After the Revolution and signing of the Declaration of Independence, America was no longer a sparse group of colonies aggregated along the Eastern coast. America was the start of something entirely new and profound to the modern world: democracy. Because of its hot and fiery origins, the founding fathers of America and intellectuals of the age — whether war veterans or legislators — were very much divided on the vision of America’s future. Thus, the roots of political parties were set in the course of American history forever. From the period 1789 to 1800, political parties developed from an insurmountable difference in opinion in leading a nation. These stark differences and

For many years since 1879 citizens of the United States wait in line to vote for the next great president who will help the country stand tall for another four years. But the mistake doesn’t lie in who you vote for, but what you are voting for and supporting. We sometimes ask ourselves, “what does each party do?” or “what are their beliefs for our country?”

People have to take a stance against larger issues regardless if they have an “interest” in politics. After Mueller comes a different author, Paul Rogat Loeb and The Active Citizen. Paul’s work represents the opposite ideal of Mueller. He talks about how more people need to be involved, and why there aren’t more already involved. He offers an explanation to this anomaly with Learned Helplessness, a condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a persistent failure to succeed. Loeb argues that this is from American culture persistently putting down ideas and making citizens doubt themselves and their ideas particularly relating to politics and I agree. There are so many great thinkers that are demoralized by the idea that what they have to say is not true and I don’t think society should be that way. People’s economic circumstances also play a role into both author’s philosophies. If someone is born into a poorer community then they are going to have less options to read about news or watch things on TV, or even have enough time to keep up with politics because of working two or three jobs. When Mueller says people aren’t involved in politics because they are not interested he’s not telling the whole truth. The economic divide is also prominent in the portrayal and interests in

Many Americans are aware of the polarization that exists within them and within the government. However, people do not realize the extent of the polarization and the effect that it has on government functions. Susan Page, author of “Divided We Now Stand” explains that many Americans are aware of the increasing polarization, when a political party influences the stance of a person, and that citizens believe that polarization influence politicians more than it influence them. However, Page argues that voters are to blame as well. She uses a survey to illustrate the choices that Americans make on a certain policy. The results of the survey show that Democrats and Republicans choose the stance of their political party, regardless of their own personal opinions on the actual policy (Page). Page’s point proves that politicians are not the only ones that contribute to the government’s dysfunction, and that voters might want to re-evaluate how they process their information and their choices if they wish to see a change.

There are many of us who are disillusioned by the American Political system, over the years we have become increasingly cynical, viewing politicians as extensions of Corporate America, the good OLE boys from the South and the Eastern Elite. For such politicians, politics itself was a life long destiny, full of ambition, finesse, and struggle for power, yet a severe lack

One factor that decreases voter turnout is the misconception that a person’s vote does not matter. Alienation is a feeling of personal powerlessness that includes the feeling that the government does not care about individual people. These people believe that the government will not respond to their concerns even if they do vote. The problem is that a large portion of the population shares this attitude. People can have negative

There are many more ways people can participate in politics other than by voting. In the United States, the second highest form of activity is by participating in community work in local communities. The

The American political process is of great importance when it involves America’s youth and how the country is able to run as a democracy. The procedures in the American Political Process include topics like public opinion, the media, political parties, interest groups, and voting. All these subjects help deal with the way the US government handles its political process. In the next few paragraphs we will see how the American Political Process is handled and how the young Americans can affect the outcome of how they want their country to be run just by simply voting.

During the national elections in the US, the voter turnout often has been noticeably scant. People who have majored in political science and those who remained in that field discuss whether or not the minuscule turnout for the presidential election is acceptable for the country or no. As it’s discussed before, this is one incident where facts can be brought out for each individual to decide on their own if they accept the facts as a positive or negative. With that being brought to the forefront of your memory, I will spend the rest of this essay talking in apropos how it can be considered both positive and negative.

As politics and government becomes more complex and involved, more effort is required to keep up with and understand it. As a result, many Americans have lost touch with current events and happenings. Therefore, when election time rolls around, many people lack enough information to develop an educated opinion and support a candidate with their vote, so they just do not vote at all. This lack of information is also related to the belief that one vote will not matter. People believe that their vote will not count, and are therefore following the news less and becoming out of touch with public affairs and politics (Is the System Broken?”). This lack of information is also more strongly apparent among the younger voting population. When interviewed

Although the American political culture contains numerous core ideals and values as all American share different views, the vast majority of people support general ideas including equality, liberty, and order. America guarantees each individual political equality, allowing each individual to have their own personal beliefs within the political sphere. However, the environment, combined with the media, has a powerful influence on the views Americans chose to hold. Different generations live through different experiences which significantly shapes the thinking of individuals. Therefore, political beliefs and ideologies form due to the resolutions regarding different conflicts. Even though there seems to be many opposing viewpoints, the American

Many scholars believe that falling civic organization membership and the general decline in our Social Capital has negatively impacted voter turnout.” (Kaufmann. 145) To summarize, people in the United States are “less involved” with other groups and other people as a whole, so it is only logical to feel they would be less involved or interest in our political and governmental future.

Political inactivity on the part of young Americans stems from one fundamental source -- a general cynicism of the American political process. This disdain for politics is further perpetuated by a lack of voter education and a needlessly archaic voting procedure that creates barriers to voting where they need not exist. While many of these existing problems can be rectified with relative ease through the implementation of programs such as Internet voting and better voter education, such programs create only a partial solution.

As a young child, politics has always been a complicated idea that I could never wrap my mind around. Even knowing nothing whatsoever over politics and the government, I could still see that there was something truly wrong with politics, and as I grew older, I began to understand politics as it itself is in a state of dysfunction. The question at hand here is how and why this dysfunction is occurring in our politics today. For many experts, they have found that it can all be centered on one main topic. Even though many experts have various viewpoints when it comes to politics, many can agree that it is partisanship that is causing dysfunction in politics, however there are also those who believe otherwise.