Single-issue voters As the US election approaches, more and more people are paying attention to politics and social issues. Some Americans are using Facebook or Instagram to appeal to people to support one of the political parties or candidates. Not only Americans, but also people all around the world are looking at this election. However, people cannot deny that there are some problems that are hidden in this seemingly perfect American political system. For example, “the single-issue voter, which means someone who feels so passionate about a single subject that they are willing to cast their presidential vote based on a candidate’s stand on this one issue alone (Jonathan Haber).” Voting based solely on one issue, which could lead to the election …show more content…
First, some people voting based on the single issue, this problem exists in American society. There are several possible reasons that can explain why it exist. However, the most crucial one is some people tend to be attracted to one specific issue easily while ignoring other issues, which are equally significant. Sometimes, because of the occurrence of some tragic events, people’s emotion tends to be polarized. It is hard to let people keep ration and calm at a special time. For instance, the mass-shootings problem. As we all know, plenty of shootings happened in the US every year. This quantity is more than many other countries. The largest one so far was happened on June 12th, 2016, at a nightclub, Orlando, Florida. 49 people were killed and a bunch of people were injured (Willingham), which is an extremely painful event in American history. People were indignant and started to refocus on gun-problem. As people know, American 2nd amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791. It claims that: “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” (Amendments to the United States Constitution) It
We first talked about whether or not voters should vote, but now let’s look on the other hand of the candidates. Another issue that faces the candidates is
The book “The Persuadable Voter” by Sunshine Hillygus and Todd Shields examines voters decisions and actions with a focus on persuadable voters. Hillygus and Shields define the persuadable voter as a reasoned voter who vote might change, is undetermined or may not agree with their party. Persuadable voters are often used synonymously with independents and those without a strong partisanship towards one party or the other. Persuadable voters have been often simplified without much examination that goes into what causes these voters to be persuadable or influenceable. Hillygus and Shields question modern myths about persuadable voters and offer their own thoughts on the topic. The authors found that the persuadable voters
More and more people are getting their news from social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Tumbler and many more, and candidates are using this to their advantage. This election is probably one of the first were candidates have actually used social media sites as their direct communication line to potential voters. Social media today had gone from gossip and family pictures to a location for political strategy. Thanks largely to trumps regular social media first declarations and its actually working particularly with the younger voters. A study released last year from the Pew Research Center that Marissa Lang cited showed that “Among 18- to 29-year-olds, nearly two-thirds said social media is the most helpful means of learning new things about politics.” (Lang, 2016). Even if the candidate isn’t the one posting the video or message in the end it will still end up on social media. For example, Trump had announced his plan to ban all Muslims from entering the united states in South Carolina not on social media however it found its way there and spread like wild fire. This sent those who were outraged to respond in disgust and those who encouraged it to share it so that their friends could see and so on and so on. Even if those who shared it did it to
Additionally to television, many political figures including Barrack Obama use social networking as a way to reach American citizens. Social networking is practically a right of passage among youth today. Political influences are in all types of media. Any young person that uses social networking or watches television is choosing to not pay attention to politics. “It would be reading too much into such responses to say that these two-thirds of young Americans didn’t value voting; they could well have seen voting as a fundamental right or a crucial choice. Nevertheless, without a
However, political communication has experienced a great deal of change within the past ten years. Now, politicians have caught on to using social media in order to connect with younger demographics of voters who are participating in elections and political conversation more than ever. Successfully integrating yourself into pop culture is a political
Gun politics of the United States remains one of the most controversial areas on the political agenda of the country . The issues are designed by the two important constituents, which are gun-control laws and the rights of the gun bearers respectively. In particular, the opinions of the gun activists and the legislators often diverge in relation to the extent and scope, to which the use of firearms should be made permissible in the United States of America. However, the provisions of the second amendment to the United States Constitution stand firm. The citizens of the USA are legitimately
In America, every single year, more than 30,000 people have their lives ended by a gun. America is obviously not only the country in this world that has violent or dangerous people. However, they are the only advanced country in this world that perceive such mass violent eruptions with similar frequency. We do not often hear of this occurring in other countries as much as we do in America. It is like the society has become numb to this, it is like it is started becoming something viewed as a normal unfortunate event (like oh it's just another mass shooting, it okay we will get over it, but really it is not okay at in any way). Instead of figuring out ways to solve this problem, it has become one of the most contradictory, biased debates (because we have people, on one hand, saying they need guns to protect themselves in times of danger and people, on the other hand, saying guns should not be allowed because the main goal of guns Is just to bring pain, agony, and damage not protection). People are dying, kids are dying due to guns, this is why gun control laws should be
Voting and Politics are topics that cause controversy amongst Americans. Moreover, many people do not express his or her right to vote because they feel like their vote will not matter. Additionally, many individuals just look for the republican or democratic candidate and conduct little research as to the candidate’s political views. I, however, look for three important aspects before voting for an individual; His or her stance of education, the environment, and whether I feel they are genuine in their promises.
There have been many discussions and studies on voter choice and whether or not the citizens that are voting in elections are politically aware of what they are voting for. Only about 55% of citizens who were eligible to vote voted in the 2012 presidential election. Many studies have found that those who do vote are necessarily voting based on political awareness. There are many factors people take into account when they determine who they will voter for. These factors include race, gender, ethnicity, culture, religion, political socialization and even emotions as factors that affect who they vote for.
In America there has been many restrictions on who were allowed to vote. Voting was not equal to all human kind. It prevented the poor, women, race, and minorities from voting. In many states, citizens were not able to vote do to the fact that they didn’t own land or pay a certain amount of the annually taxes. Only white males over the age of 21 were able to vote. The right to vote started to develop in the early 1990’s.
Married people vote more than others \citep{wolfinger1980who}, and the participation of one's partner is a good predictor of who participates in politics \citep{stoker_life-cycle_1995}. One of the explanations provided to why the partners political participation is of importance for one's likelihood to participate is that the political mobilization is socially driven. Partner's are an important source of social influence, and the most common political discussion partners \citep{beck1991voters}. The logic of this argument applies to political participation in general, and to voting participation in particular. One important difference between voting and many other forms of political participation is that the vote is personal. It cannot be handed
In 2007, President Barack Obama launched a very successful social media campaign that helped him beat Clinton, and then eventually John McCain (New York Times, 2008). The Obama campaign created “an unforeseen force to raise money, organize locally, fight smear campaigns and get out the vote that helped them topple the Clinton machine and then John McCain and the Republicans.” The 2008 election was the first election where every candidate reached out to people through social media (US News, 2008). Facebook cofounder, Chris Hughes, was able to help President Barack Obama and have his campaign soar. As expected, because of President Barack Obama’s Facebook campaign he reached out to the youth and they were all part of the reason he went on to become our President.
It has been found that issues do not play a significant role in voter choice. The American Voter authors found that the public is often not well informed about public policy and may not be able to vote on the issues alone. They also found that for voters to decide who to vote for based on issues three conditions must first be met. The first is that the voters must hold an opinion on the issue. They must also see what action the government is taking on the issue, and finally they must be able to see a difference in issue positions between the two parties. It is highly unlikely that a majority of the American public is able to meet all three requirements. Another reason why Americans are unable to make decisions based on issues is that they lack the knowledge and sophistication such a decision requires. Most of those people who do vote on issues know the candidates stances on the issues and keep their own view constant over time. (Abramson, Aldrich, Rohde, 179-180)
In the writing by Briggs (Young People and Political Participation: Teen Players) she notes that “social media are a critical new space for political discourse and engagement, which political institutions cannot afford to neglect” as the younger audiences use social media, and the people they follow as a guide it seemed vital that modern day politics has to infiltrate social media formats. This can be utilised by politicians and their agenda to widen the scope of their message. In the Praeger Handbook of Political Campaigning in the United States, Benoit investigates how successful an organised strategy using new media to win an election can be for political candidates. He states that “the innovative use of new media contributed to President Barack Obama's presidential campaign win in 2008” (Benoit, 2016). Obama's presidential campaign was one of the first to set the standard for political strategy online. The literature talks about the expansion of the internet and how that has provided a suitable platform for political agendas to grow exponentially. With the focus of the research project highlighting the specific use of social media it is important to reflect on the initial stages of online political campaigning, and to understand how Trump has cultivated this style of political
Social media has grown at phenomenal rates over the past decade, with its rise being easily visible in several fields such as publishing, business, and activism, among others. The rise of its use in the field of politics is well known by those who are on and off social media, as a result of increasing number of politicians using this global platform to their maximum advantage.