Is American Political Culture Conflictual or Consensual?

        When we think of America, an idea of a country with freedom of beliefs and culture is the first thing that comes to mind, and that is exactly true. Whether your living on the east or west coast, or in the north or south, your political beliefs are unique to you and you only. Based on location, people have made assumptions about political beliefs and ideologies. They tend to see rural states in the mid west or south as "Red" republican territory, and urban, northern states as "Blue" Democrat areas. Since these locations are vastly different, we can imagine that the personal political culture is extremely different as well. People will have completely unique stances on current issues in our government, making our overall political culture one that overlaps and conflicts with each other. This is why the United States' political culture is known as "conflictual," rather than consensual.

         Although conflictual is technically not a real word, it can be defined as political culture in which different groups, or subcultures, clash with opposing beliefs and values. This perfectly describes our country in terms of political and governmental altercations. Many situations arise where a problem is present and two main sides take opposite positions, most commonly it being Republicans and Democrats, or Liberals and Conservatives. This is very frequent in day-to-day life, and we often cannot go a day without some type of political argument, whether it be on a town-wide, statewide, or even nationwide scale. In the article, One Nation, Slightly Divided, it expresses the excessive stereotypes we place on people, just going off of political ideologies. It states that, "America is divided between two moral systems. Red America is traditional, religious, self-disciplined, and patriotic. Blue America is modern, secular, self-expressive, and discomfited by blatant displays of patriotism." Stereotypical attitudes like these divide Americans more than bringing them together. Who is to say that someone who lives in Blue America is not patriotic, or someone that lives in red America is not self-expressive. Locations do not define personality, appearance, or political judgement, yet we place everyone under categories like these. Not to say that none of these assumptions are true, because stereotypes always go off of some truth, just sometimes they are taken to the next level, which is unnecessary. The same article also says that, "All we know, or all we think we know, about Red America is that millions and millions of its people live quietly underneath flight patterns, many of them racist and homophobic, and when you see them at highway rest stops, they're often really fat and their clothes are too tight..." Not only do accusations like this have a negative affect on our society, but they also divide our country more than ever. Calling all people who happen to live in what is referred as "Red" America racist and homophobic only promotes more hate and conflict. Although this is an extremely sad truth, it proves that American political culture is conflictual. Greatly exaggerated stereotypes promote political disagreements, which change how we view our everyday politics. We often take things to the next level, rather than create a reasonable compromise, because both sides want to take the credit for being right. 

         In the youtube playlist, Red States vs. Blue States, a series of three videos express how different people's political views can be. The videos from CNN's Crossfire shows how different states view certain current issues around the country. In the video, they have two people, one supporting the left, or liberal sides of the arguments, and the other on the right, or conservative stances. They also bring in two governors of both a red(Texas) and blue(Illinois) state to enhance the debate and show how they are run using different methods. In the beginning, they introduced that they had two guests who had, "Profoundly different views of governing,"proving that they had disagreements on how a state should be run. An argument of this much influence and importance is what makes our political culture conflictual. The way one state is run affects the lives and political ideas of  millions of people, and if a governor is a Democrat, the citizens of that state will either agree or disagree with the governor's ideas. Some even make inferences just based on the governors political background. Later in the video, they discuss minimum wage, the excavating of fossil fuels, and lack of jobs, all of which they have completely opposing views on. This again proves how conflictual our political culture and ideologies really are. 

     In class we talked about how other countries that are democracies are essentially different than us, because we have several familiar elements, like nationalism, equality, and liberty. I agree with the fact that these elements benefit us greatly, but they also promote conflict and a conflictual political culture. Other democracies like Japan do not posses these same ideas. They trust the government to make the best decisions on their behalf, however here we question very situation the government comes in contact with. This increases arguing, not only about government, but also about the very meaning of the elements. People interpret the meanings of things differently, for example equality could mean equal chances, or personal equality.  Debating the meanings of these ideas is also at the center of liberal and conservative beliefs. The image below shows the general beliefs on left and right arguments. In the middle, some relate to each other and work with each other, on the outside however the views are very diverse, making our society conflictual.

       Also, another image shows the percentages of the country's population who fall in the spectrum of either democrat of Republican as of 2013. It shows how evenly split the percentages are, making one party unable to dominate the other. This sparks even more conflict in political issues due to an almost even number of people on each side/stance. It also shows the difference between women and men. You can see that more women are Democrats than men, and almost the same number of men and women are Republicans. The rest are either Independent, or prefer neither side.

     

    After, looking at all this data and reasoning, it can ultimately be concluded that our political culture is CONFLICTUAL due to the constant altercations, many different sides of topics and situations, and the number of problems our country comes into contact with every day.