In the foreword of “The Best American Infographics 2016,” Gareth Cook mentions an infographic entitled “How the Parties Came Apart.” About it, he says, “Look, for example at “How the Parties Came Apart,” and how it uses red and blue for the parties, and then a gray that only catches when there are many connections across the partisan divide (mostly in the early years). And consider all the extraneous details that have been omitted. The story is strong.” Why are the extraneous details worth mentioning? Why does he leave the vague term “extraneous details” instead of elaborating on it? One could argue that the author was penning a foreword; there was simply not enough space to go into a deeper analysis of one infographic when there are many …show more content…
The artist of the infographic which Cook mentioned, Mauro Martino, developed a plethora of network diagrams to show the movement and divisions of party lines from 1949-2011. These diagrams can be very informative when looking at surface-level party movements, but do not explain why the movement occurred the way it did. These are the extraneous details Cook was referencing. Why did the author think it unimportant to not mention important things occurring that could be a reason for the specific shift in parties? In researching what details Cook is talking about, I found that party division was directly related to what was occurring, both economically and politically. At first glance, one cannot, without intimate knowledge of the world in the past century, draw informed conclusions about why political parties shifted the way that they did. The lack of details forces the reader to desire more about the information the infographic is displaying. Humans are naturally curious beings, and the artist of this infographic capitalizes on this. While I understand why these details were omitted, I think they make the infographic harder to understand, especially to those with little to no understanding of the political climate of the last sixty-two years. Infographics were made to be informative, but the omission of too many details can ruin the infographic for the general public. Adding a short synopsis of the political climate during
The United States has maintained its two party system for some time, but the major parties have not always been so clearly separated. In the early and mid-twentieth century, polarization was actually declining, as there was much ideological overlap between the members of the two parties (Kuo). Many people, such as conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, rested in the ideological middle. Additionally, each party represented a coalition of diverse interests. At
US parties are often described as organisationally weak because they are essentially ‘broad coalitions’. For example they contain moderates like McCain republican) and Obama democrat), while also having a more conservative wing. Therefore stronger party organisation would give parties a narrower appeal and potentially alienate large ‘voting blocs’ or proportions of the electorate. This is a reason why it is argued that having ‘organisationally weak’ parties is a necessity in the US political system. It has therefore been argued that symptoms of weak organisation e.g issue centred or candidate-centered election campaigns are deliberate as parties attempt to gain a maximum
Political ideas, beliefs, institutions, party systems, and alignments have developed and changed during the American
When Mark Twain first published The Gilded Age, there seemed to be no real discords between the Republicans and the Democrats. Both parties represented Corporate America—or a certain portion of it—although lines could be drawn between the Protestants and the Catholics, North and South, protectionists and people who believed in (or benefited from) free trade. As American politics gradually shifted from a game of the elites to ordinary people’s democracy, both parties took in more demographic groups under their wings. While it seems difficult to pinpoint when exactly the two parties evolve into what they represent today, it is generally agreed that Republicans are more conservative, Democrats are more liberal, whereas most people belong somewhere in between.
"Choosing Sides: The Rise of Party Politics." Choosing Sides: The Rise of Politics. Web. 21 July
Susan Page offers powerful support in the form of ethological appeal, logical appeal, and the use of imagery to convey readers the separation of political parties in her article, Divided We Now Stand. The rhetorical strategies Page uses help achieve her purpose of demonstrating the American people are to blame for the divided line between our citizens. Page chose these detailed and affirmative strategies to show American citizens that blaming the government for the country’s separation in wrong.
The changes between the parties have become more distinctive throughout the years. Some of these changes include preferences, behavior, increasing homogeneous districts, and increasing alignment between ideology and partisanship among voters.
The main purpose of the article by Matt Motyl titled, “Liberals and conservatives are (geographically) dividing” is that political parties’ affiliations are dividing the U.S. This can be seen through the locations many Americans live such as liberals going to more urban areas as opposed to the conservatives to go to less populated areas in rural states (Motyl, 2014). The author uses the Ideological Enclavement Theory to explain the division of people in the U.S through ideological-segregated enclaves (Motyl, 2014).
In the forefront of the political system in the US are the two major parties; the liberal Democrats and the conservative Republicans. While each party strives for peace and prosperity of the United States, they have many different views on topics that are always in people’s minds including; gun control, immigration, health care and many others. These parties have evolved through hundreds of years of competition and ideas from all over the world into the modern parties that we now have.
It was found that national party divisions are typically ran by elites that worked together to unite divided parties to participate together in the hopes of the party winning the presidency. Having a diverse set of candidates does not imply that the party is divided although it could worsen existing disunions. Measuring national party division was crucial in the research; in the 1970s delegate votes at the national convection gave an approximate measure of divisiveness. One way that national party division can be measured is by the proportion of convention votes through the Democratic nominee without the corresponding proportion for the Republican nominee. This delegate-based measure is for the most part based on party activist, in which are picked by the presidential campaign by the partisan voters. On the other hand, another manner to measure is by aggregate primary vote that is comparing the proportion of the national primary won by the two nominees. Moreover, to measure the impact national party division has they used convection votes and aggregate primary vote to portray that the substantive conclusion does not rely on how the variable is measured (12). Although there is no precise or best way to put to use state level primary divisiveness it is clear that in presidential campaigns, a divisive state primary the electorate rather have a candidate than the eventual nominee. Thus, this type of divisiveness can be measured by the proportion of the vote for the candidate other than the final nominee. Another approach would rely on the competitiveness of the primary, which is measure by a vote margin of the two leading candidates in the
Since the birth of America men have divided themselves into different parties to come up with ideas that would better the nation and themselves. George Washington, in his farewell address, warned Americans about the problems that would accompany political parties, but no one listened. Instead many different political parties began to slowly develop overtime causing many major and minor divisions. The rise of the Republican Party came about at the nation’s darkest and most divided hour, but they began the hard, war-torn steps of putting the Union back together.
Today, political parties can be seen throughout everyday life, prevalent in various activities such as watching television, or seeing signs beside the road while driving. These everyday occurrences make the knowledge of political parties commonly known, especially as the two opposing political parties: the Republicans and the Democrats. Republican and Democrats have existed for numerous years, predominantly due to pure tradition, and the comfort of the ideas each party presents. For years, the existence of two political parties has dominated the elections of the president, and lower offices such as mayor, or the House of Representatives. Fundamentally, this tradition continues from the very emergence of political parties during the
The author’s begins by observing that political parties were speculated to be non-existent in America. Its founders were certain that the parties would create rifts
Have you ever questioned why we have political parties, what’s the contrast between the two? The formation of political parties caused madness between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, building tension in our country. Although they bear some minor similarities the contrasts between federalist and democratic-republican parties are definite.
In the US, mixer apparent motion from the farewell and right – i.e., from the civil rights drive in the 50s and 60s to the Tea Party movement in more recent years – have pushed both major US party (the Repopulace and Democrats) toward the fringe of the political spectrum. McAdam and Tarrow (2010) nicely illustrate this process with the example of the antiwar movement and its influence on the American party system after 9/11 (see also Heaney and Rojas 2007, 2015). Similarly, McAdam and Kloos (2014) appearance how mixer apparent motion contributes to the radicalization of party posture and to the polarization of institutional politics more generally. Their study is important in offering an in-depth analysis of party on the right of the political