America, Conflictual?! Of Course

Political culture, a set of commonly shared beliefs, values, and norms, has been argued to be either conflictual or consensual. Based on how our government has come about we can see that it is really conflictual. We are made of all different races and backgrounds which in itself can create conflict. On top of these every has ideas of their own based on their upbringing.

Our country is under constant conflict when it comes to the two specific parties. There may be views on some ideas that are the same, but really there are more that are different. One of these major differences brought out by David Brooks in "One Nation, Slightly Divisible" is the view on education and how much education is needed. In blue states, at least half got a degree in college while 91% had a high school diploma. On the other hand, red states had much less education. Only about 12% had college degrees and 69% had graduated from high school. With this much of a gap between the parties there is less similarities between views. Since the blue states have much more education they may see certain points that the red states bring out to be dumb creating a separation within the country.

Not only do the people create this division, but the media has a lot to attribute to it. In the political cartoon up above we see that the news reports for both sides call each other for giving out false information. Since they appeal to different crowds they must help their supporting audience to expose their more important views, such as ideas on gay marriage, abortion, and immigration issues. The cartoon reveals how different the parties views are since they both say that each others facts are really lies. All in all the two groups actually are agreeing, but in the way that they are both wrong in each others mindset.

From the video "A Bad Map We See Every Presidential Election" we can see the division within the country. This division can even lead down to the little towns in each state. Some of the images shown during the video depicted that there was a clear separation between the blue and red states. Although there were many states that do vote for a certain party does not guarantee a win. It all depends on the electoral votes in the end. Take for example, Massachusetts although it is a tiny state they have more than double the amount of electoral votes than Montana.

I would have to agree with Justine to some extent that everyone is here for the same purpose no matter what race or ethnicity. But if we really look into how Americas government works we can see that the arguments and division is sometimes what helps America to get things done such as creating compromise.