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According to Bill Bishop, people are starting to live near other people who share their
political The places we live are becoming increasingly crowded with people who live, think and
vote like we do (Document 3) When you put into account that people live near other people
who share their political views, areas with a high population density start to become more and
more geared towards one political ideology. Document 12 shows a graph that represents the
population density and their political affiliation. The graph shows that conservatives live near
each other in the more isolated areas of the nation, where the electoral points arent as high. The
graph show that liberals live around more population heavy areas such as cities, they tend to live
in states with higher electoral votes, which translates to their votes holding much more weight.
The denser the population, the more likely they are to vote democrat. This turns into the
Democratic party winning over the states with higher electoral votes. The democratic party
winning over the states with the higher electoral points has lead to a tyranny of the majority in
the nation. The majority of the population votes democrat according to Document 12, and the
past two elections have been victories by the democratic party, as well as three out of the past
five. Ideological differences have become a major issue for the nation because now the nation is
looking on a scenario where one political party could rule the nation for years to come, and then
a bulk of the population would be ignored.
The two political parties that dominate our system are indeed as different as can be. It has
even become humorous to the population as demonstrated by a political cartoon by David
Horsey from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Document 5). The cartoon shows the difference
between the Red Americans and the Blue Americans. Although the political cartoon
obviously exaggerates both sides, it does show that democrats do favor a government with a
bigger role in our everyday lives while republicans prefer a less involved government. It is easy
to dismiss this cartoon off as satire, but Pew Researchs study titled Beyond the Red vs. Blue:
The political Typology (Document 7) shows that democrats and republicans have very different
views on the major issues that face the nation. For example, 70 percent of liberals believe the
government should control guns and their distribution, while 86 percent of staunch
conservatives believe the government should protect the right to own guns. This trend follows
many other issues, such as gay marriage (84 percent of liberals support, 72 percent of
conservatives oppose) and energy policy priority (88 percent of liberals believe we should find
alternative sources, 72 percent of conservatives believe we should expand coal, and oil
exploration). This different opinions of the political parties in the nation have lead to the two
opposing sides not being able to collaborate, creating a culturally divided nation.
The different political ideologies have led to a government shutdown, a tyranny of the
majority, and a decrease in moderate voters. In order to further support my claim, A document
stating which areas are more supportive/ against the major policy issues (i.e. gun control, energy
policy, etc) would be helpful because then i could prove that different areas are in support of
certain policies, then I could compare it to document 12 and show a connection between the how
population density of certain areas and their political affiliation affect the areas views on certain
policies. Different political ideologies have created nothing but trouble for the nation, the
opposing views of the parties have lead to large groups of people clinging to one ideology over
the other and the creation of two completely different cultures.