American Gov midterm: I got the power/American identity and Government/ Understanding public opinion

Midterm election –

congressional elections that do not coincide with a presidential election; also called “off year elections”

Party primary –

an election in which party candidates are nominated by party members rather than party leaders

Political efficacy –

citizens’ feelings of effectiveness in political affairs

Gary Peters not running for reelection in battleground Michigan

Republicans have 53-47 majority in US Senate.

Democrats want to take back control in the 2026 midterm election.

33 seats will be up in the US Senate in 2026.  

Michigan is a swing state (Trump won by just 80,000 votes, or 1.4%).

But any Senate seat is easier to hold if you are the incumbent. 

With Peters, a Democrat, not running again, it’s an open seat.  Big party primary elections on both sides.

The key points you should understand today

• The design of the US government focuses on imposing power and restraining power.  There will always be this tension.

• Power goes beyond government.  Other non-government entities have power too; sometimes extremely strong powers.

• Another level of power is when you contain one’s ability to even think it is normal to have any power at all.

• Power can be stable for a very long time, but the American system of government allows for change to come.

How do we define politics?

“Who gets what, when and how.”

--  Harold Laswell, 1936

And since we accept that “men aren’t angels” (Federalist 51), this process of politics is determined by who has POWER.

In other words, government – 

where we work out  who gets what, when and how – 

is about both imposing and restraining power.

Distribution of Power: Two theories on how power is distributed:

Elite Theory – largely pushed by sociologists

Pluralist Theory – largely promoted by political scientists

Pluralist theory

Everyone has the same power.  

  

Community groups.  Average citizens.  Business leaders.  Nobody’s power is absolute.

  

You can all vote.  You can all organize.  Power is therefore spread out.

  

The Critics Say:  Yes, but… voting and the ability to organize is really weighted towards those with higher SES (Socio-Economic Status)

  

“The problem with the pluralist heaven is that the chorus sings with an upper-class accent.”

Elite theory

Power is centralized, held by just a few people.

Bachrach & Baratz article:  

• Every community has its own power structure.

• If the community is stable, then the power structure is stable.

• Reputational power is the same as actual power.  

The Critics Say: 

  

• There is no power structure because too many people have some power, and sometimes, that grows.

• It’s not stable over time, because power is dictated by a given issue.  So, as the issues change, who has power changes.

• Reputational power is not the same as actual power because to be real, power has to be used… and used effectively.  

If we count the times when power was used, does that give us a full reflection of power?

Bachrach & Baratz say, no!  

And they go back to the fighting example we talked about earlier, where the audience determines the outcome.  

Power means stopping the fight when you’re winning.  

So, they ask:  how do you limit the spread of the fight once you’re winning?

What are some examples of this kind of power?

• Slavery, and then Jim Crow era

• Treatment of women in paternalistic era

The key points you need to understand…

• The design of the US government focuses on imposing power and restraining power.  There will always be this tension.

• Power goes beyond government.  Other non-government entities have power too; sometimes extremely strong powers.

• Another level of power is when you contain one’s ability to even think it is normal to have any power at all.

• Power can be stable for a very long time, but the American system of government allows for change to come.

China strikes back at Trump’s tariffs with levies on US imports

The world’s two largest economies did not cut a deal to avert sweeping US tariffs, which mane into effect after midnight, Beijing immediately retaliated

Citizen –

member of a political community with both rights and responsibilities

Equality –

the idea that people should be treated similarly under the law and have the same opportunities to get ahead

Declaration of Independence –

the political document that dissolved the colonial ties between the United States and Britain

Why not “life, liberty and property”? (preamble)

Why the deviation from John Locke?

Because of slavery.  The issue of slavery divides the nation from the beginning.

• Anti-slavery voices removed “property” from the Declaration.

• Pro-slavery voices removed mention of slavery from list of grievances.

  
  KEY POINT:
  
  Tension and compromise underscored the Declaration of Independence

The tension continued with the Constitution…

and  exploded with the Civil War.

Civil War: July 1 – 3, 1863. Gettysburg, PA

More than 50,000 Americans dead.  

Over 3 days.

(COMPARE TO:  Over 20 years of the Vietnam War, 58,000 Americans died.)

In November of that year, 

to dedicate the battlefield as a memorial, Lincoln speaks.

What Lincoln argued at Gettysburg…

The Constitution didn’t create America.

The Declaration of Independence, with its aspirational language, did.

The Declaration established America as an IDEA.

That IDEA was what needed to be protected, so that the idea of this better place doesn’t perish from the earth.

Before the Gettysburg Address/ After

The United States was a plural…

“The United States are going to do this.”

The United States was a singular…

“The United States is going to do this.”

Civil War Amendments (13^th, 14^th, and 15^th ) –

These 3 amendments to the US Constitution ensured that formerly enslaved people would be guaranteed the rights of citizenship.  

The 13^th Amendment abolished slavery.

The 14^th Amendment established birthright citizenship and equal protection.

The 15^th Amendment allowed for Black men to vote.

Public opinion –

the aggregation of views of the population on issues at a specific moment in time.

Sample bias –

the effect of having a sample that does not represent all segments of the population

Federal judge in Maryland blocks trumps birthright citizenship order

Example of “checks and balances” of the Constitution.

  

Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1:

• All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. 

Has the US Supreme Court weighed in on this? Yes! “Trump Moved to redefine birthright citizenship, That could be hard”

Facts of the case

• The Chinese Exclusion Acts denied citizenship to Chinese immigrants. Moreover, by treaty, no Chinese subject in the United States could become a naturalized citizen. 

• Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco to parents who were both Chinese citizens who resided in the United States at the time. 

• At age 21, he returned to China to visit his parents who had previously resided in the United States for 20 years. When he returned to the United States, Wong was denied entry on the ground that he was not a citizen.

United States vs. Wong Kim Ark (1898)

Question

• Is a child who was born in the United States to Chinese-citizen parents who are lawful permanent residents of the United States a U.S. citizen under the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Conclusion

• Because Wong was born in the United States and his parents were not “employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China,” the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment automatically makes him a U.S. citizen. 

• Justice Horace Gray authored the opinion on behalf of a 6-2 majority, in which the Court established the parameters of the concept known as jus soli—the citizenship of children born in the United States to non-citizens. Justice Joseph McKenna took no part in the case.

Why is public opinion important?

Two (2) ways to approach being an elected representative:

Delegate – do whatever the people want

 

Trustee – do what you think is right

Most people try to find a balance.  

Now… if you value what people want, 

then you need to know what they want. 

Therefore, public opinion is important.

What shapes American public opinion?

Start with…

Values / Beliefs – Basic principles that shape a person’s opinions about political issues and events

What are some core American values / beliefs?

Democracy – one person, one vote.  

Equality – hard to define.  It’s not math.  But, Americans tend to agree on equality of opportunity.

Liberty – to do your own thing… to think for yourself

Freedom – what kind?  Expression.  Anything else?

Justice – respect for rule of law; expectation that justice is blind

What else shapes public opinion?

SOCIALIZATION.  How you grow up… where and how you learn… the moments that shape your life

Is government responsive to public opinion?

Sometimes.  

Raise drinking age to 21.  Popular and became law.

Regulate sale of guns at gun shows.  Popular and not law.

Why the discrepancy?  

Because some voices are stronger than others.  Louder, more persuasive, etc.

Do the strong always win?  No.

What is public opinion?

We never REALLY know the public’s opinion.  

Instead, we have an educated guess as to what everyone thinks.  

And, when done well, it is 95% reliable.

Public opinion is also hard to understand because it is:

• Often contradictory  (Low taxes!  Small towns!)

• Often stupid  (Elvis is still dead btw)

• Often ambivalent (don’t care either way,

ex. Optometrists v. Ophthalmologists)

• Often fluid depending on the specifics

(Like/hate Obamacare based on details person knows)

How does one make an educated guess of public opinion? 

Answer:  POLLING!

Polling (done properly) is a scientific measurement of public opinion.

  

Different from anecdotal evidence, which can be far off from reality (i.e., the guys at the barbershop).

But even scientific-based polling

can get it wrong! 

1948 – Dewey, Truman, and telephones

2010 – Harry Reid and nighttime workers in Nevada

These are examples of “sample bias”

How does a politician change public opinion?

1. Framing (lines of cleavage)

2. Repetition

Ex.  CRIME:  Dems/Dukakis 1988 

vs. Dems/Clinton 1992

 Polling helps you determine how to best use “lines of cleavage”.

Lines of cleavage are how you use language to frame an issue for your benefit.  Who’s got an example?

Challenges in Polling

Wording Bias – Always there with the wording

of the questions, but you do your best to minimize it.  

 

Lack of responders – It takes a LONG time to get the right mix of respondents because so many people don’t want to respond to (a) unknown numbers and (b) pollsters.

Undercounted populations – Black Americans, Hispanics, college kids, Trump voters

 

Bradley effect.  After Tom Bradley, mayor of Los Angeles in 1982 running against GOPer George Deukmejian.  

 

Basically, people lied and the vote for Bradley was not truly there.  People told pollsters that they were going to vote for him, -- it is assumed because they thought that was the “proper” thing to say – but they didn’t actually vote for him in the end.

In 12016, was there a Trump effect?  Did people not admit they like him to a pollster? Pollsters started asking, “Do you have a close friend who is supporting Trump?” 

Sampling (Sample Bias) – Deciding who makes up your group of polled voters

     Who gets polled in a campaign?  Voters!

     But WHICH voters?   Those most likely to vote, you might say.

     OK, but how do you know who those are?  Voting history is one way to  

           guess. Ex.  1/4 voter vs. 4/4 voter

But it’s more complicated!  1/4 voter STILL has, perhaps, 20% chance of voting

So, how many of the 1 /4 voters will actually show up?

Nevada 2010 race again.  Harry Reid focused on these marginal voters, increased their % of the total votes… and won.