Summary Of The Myth Of A Polarized American

“So the part of the problem is not just the rhetoric. It's the fact that we're so polarized in what we've done to each other as parties over the last thirty years in redistricting that it's very, very hard to overcome your own constituencies and move to the middle” (Howard Dean). Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized American a book written by Morris P. Fiorina gives readers statistics, graphs, and surveys to support his argument that the United States of America is non-polarized. According to Fiorina, Americans can only choose between the alternatives offered by the parties (267). After reading this book many readers will see that it is not the United States of America that is polarized it is the political parties that are more polarized than

Get rid of the polarization that is said to be in the United States. So what is beyond the red and blue states of this 50:50 nation? Fiorina explains in his fourth chapter. According to DiMaggio, Evans, and Bryson’s, “exhaustive statistical analysis finds that during the last quarter of the twentieth century older and younger Americans grew more alike in their views, not more dissimilar” (P. 58), According to Fiorina: Americans go the polls with a fairly set idea of how they will cast their votes, that majority was no bigger in 2000 than in 1976. Reports of a culture war are mostly wishful thinking and useful fund-raising strategies on the part of culture war guerrillas, abetted by a media driven by the need to make the dull and everyday appear exciting and unprecedented (P. 77).

The media is always exaggerating every single piece of news some subjects more than other. With dozens of news channels available on the television ratings mean everything. If it bleeds it

After analyzing abortion Fiorina takes “A Closer Look at Homosexuality” the sixth chapter in Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America. According to Fiorina, “perhaps the politically most significant point to make about American attitudes toward homosexuality is the strong relationship such attitudes bear to age: while younger Americans are less liberal than popular stereotypes suggest, they are definitely more tolerant of homosexuals and more accepting of homosexual rights than older Americans” (P. 123). In Figure 6.6 (P. 124) the graph shows us how young Americans are more accepting of legal homosexual relations. According to the Gallup Organization, “Americans of all ages have become more accepting, but older cohorts are dying off and being replaced by more tolerant younger cohorts” (P. 123). As the years progress we can see that number only increase.

Gay Marriage has been a prominent issue the past several years. Since older cohorts are dying off as the years pass and tolerant younger cohorts are becoming bigger in numbers. What happens when we everyone agrees with homosexuality in several years to come? Well, this will no longer be an issue that can be used by political parties and journalists to define the line of Republicans and