One state, two state, red state, blue state

[qatarperegrine]

You know what's unexpectedly hard? Trying to explain the U.S. political system to someone who knows very little about it. Not because our system is that complicated, but because it's such an unusual experience to talk to someone who doesn't have the general knowledge that can be expected of anyone who's been through an eighth grade social studies class.

A few weeks ago, an Egyptian student brought me an article on media bias. She was baffled by a particular section about different media outlets' decisions to report the Supreme Court decision on the Florida recount as either a 7-2 or a 5-4 decision. This student is fascinated by politics, and the article brought up a lot of questions in her mind about how American government worked.

Every time I answered a question, though, it just led to more questions. Answering a question on why only Florida had a recount, for example, opened the whole question of the electoral college. I found myself explaining basic concepts like federalism, the branches of government, and the principle of judicial review. (A shout out to Mr. McHenry, my eighth grade social studies teacher, for drilling Marbury v. Madison into my brain.)

Here were the two hardest parts of explaining the 2000 election:

1. Communicating the seriousness of concerns about voting irregularities without making it sound like American elections are as corrupt as Egyptian. (The only time the student's eyes lit with recognition was at the mention of the fact that some of the Supreme Court justices had been appointed by the father of one of the candidates. Her next question: "Does 'appointed' mean the same as 'bribed'?") How do you explain that, even though she hears people say the election was "stolen," it's not quite the same as Mubarak stealing an election?


2. Explaining "red states" and "blue states"! At first blush it seemed easy: red states vote majority Republican, blue states Democrat. However, the student didn't know what Republicans and Democrats were, nor the meanings of the words "conservative" and "liberal." So here's my question to all of you: how would you explain these concepts? What examples would you choose to show the differences between the two parties' views?

Comments

[3catsjackson.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you could relate Repubs and Dems as being akin to Theocratic and Secular governments? Not at all a perfect analogy, but it might be more accessible in the Middle East.

As far as the outrage over 2000, I think it has to do with the fact that Americans in general tend to idolize the founding fathers, the documents they wrote, and the system they built. Even though we see flaws with the system we live in, the link with that idealized notion of democratic government is something that many Americans hold dear, almost fanatically. So most Americans take it for granted that we're all created equal, and that all of us get one vote, and that all those votes will be counted. 2000 brought to light some ways that this wasn't actually the case, and so the reaction was one of disheartening to see ideals heretofore considered factual to have either deteriorated, never existed, or been extraordinarily stolen. Given those choices, it's far less painful to consider it a fluke rather than a typical occurrence. Voters in Egypt by now are used to (if not thrilled with) Mubarak's sort of election stealing, so it lacks the same shock value and jarring of expectations.

Excuse me

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

but other than the pieces of paper with Party Platform written on top, campaign slogans and generic labels such as "conservative" vs. "liberal", I seriously ask, IS there really any significant difference in practice, between the two parties? While I've never lived in the USA as an adult, the view from afar is such that as far as actual governing is concerned, I can't really tell which party is "in power" or who backed which lousy President. Aside from the fact that each party has it's "traditional demographic" of voters, I don't see much difference between them [Bush has actually greatly increased the polarization between the two], to the extent that the cynic in me thinks you folks mostly have a [two-headed] one-party system (with all that this implies) that have things set up between them, to prevent any real threat from any other opinion/party - As long as this status-quo prevails it doesn't really matter what the party agenda is. All they ever use are buzz-words any way.

I have never actually voted in the USA. Because of the way the bizarre electoral system is set-up, I don't really have to. My absentee ballot would be polled in a strong Blue state (Massachusetts), and my inclination so far (surprising as this may seem), has been to vote for Democrat Presidential candidates. I once checked - the last time my voting district was voted red was about 130 years ago.

The one time that I actually bothered applying to vote, was back in 1992 or 1996 when Ross Perot ran for office (this would have been my first or second eligible election). But at the time, I didn't understand how futile this would have been - If you are NOT from a "swing state" then your vote really doesn't matter, whether you vote for or against your state "color", let alone some additional candidate.

The greatest difficulty that foreigners have with understanding the USA political set-up, is that despite external appearances where the USA appears to be one country, internally it is, to a large extent, fifty independent ones, with a lot more political maneuvering and in-fighting than an outsider would believe possible. It took me a good long time to internalize this, that in fact, the states even have [moderately] different forms of government, each with it's own set of laws and "constitution", and that indeed these minor differences are a source of "state pride". Us foreigners tend to think the USA is much more monolithic. You guys are weird. ;-)

I'll close with a wonderful quote from Ross Perot, that is so much more true today than when said in 1992, Washington D.C, he said,

"has become a town filled with sound bites, shell games, handlers, media stuntmen who posture, create images, talk, shoot off Roman candles, but don't ever accomplish anything. We need deeds, not words, in this city."

[aristopheles.livejournal.com]

I think I would try to identify the usual constituencies that Republicans and Democrats try to appeal to. Neither party really has a single base: Republicans want to appeal to their traditional business interests along with small businesspeople, evangelicals, security hawks, and most of rural America. Democrats have most of the cities, union members (dwindling), some minorities, and liberal religious groups. Of course, a lot of people fit into more than one of these groups, and there are tensions between coalition partners! For example, among Republicans, business people and hawks are often socially liberal. African-Americans generally vote Democratic, but they often support school vouchers and disapprove of abortion.
So I'd probably want to start with that kind of analysis, before trying to explain why the parties sort of have official ideologies, but aren't very consistent.

[archdukechocula.livejournal.com]

In the simplest possible terms, I would define republicans as fiscally conservative in government with tendancies towards free market places, while being social traditionalists. Conversely, democrats or liberals tend to want the government to invest in social welfare programs and tend to be socially permissive. Naturally politics in a two party system with winner take all elections means politicians must tend towards moderation within their district to win, so the distinctions are more theoretical than real at this point, but I think that is where the ideological lines can be drawn in the simplest possible terms.