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Summary Of The Article 'Partisan Voting Makes Accountability Impossible'

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In the Huffington Post article “Why Partisan Voting Makes Accountability Impossible”, Todd Phillips analyzes how social groups and political ideology heightens the response we have toward the candidate that represents our political party. Phillips states that social groups will vote for a candidate because of their loyalty to the political party, and not because of their issue advocacy. This loyalty is emphasized due their attachment to their social group. During times of an election, politicians will have different policies and stances on issues that can be seen as being more liberal or more conservative. However, this does not deter partisans from voting for their a candidate, since their loyalty lies within their attachment to their political …show more content…

The social group we are in is determined from a young age and is based upon values we learned within the home. Although we are not born a Democrat or Republican, ideological values lean us toward a political party. In class, we discussed that period forces can also have an effect on young people, but not enough to have them change party lines. The identity we developed is derived from our social groups, since certain religions, racial groups, education level, and even our economic class is associated with different political parties. Poorer people and racial minorities tend to vote Democrat, and college non-educated whites are increasingly become more GOP (lecture). Social groups that see a candidate represent their party and their identity (racial,religious, or economic) makes them more likely to vote for the candidate if the group can relate to them. Democratic African American turnout for Barack Obama in the ‘08 and ‘12 election being high could have been due to this social group having a strong attachment to their candidate (lecture).
Once a person identifies with their political party, it is hard to break away from that due to social group attachment. Politicians use this to their advantage, and can be ideologically extreme without losing their follower base. John Sides, in his article “Presidential candidates are ideologically extreme. And they pretty much get away with it.”, discusses a study that presidential candidates are not “punished by their extremism”. Candidates during the time did not lose many votes compared to those who were moderate, and votes suffered due to fundamental conditions and not on

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