Realigning Elections in American History

Since the stunning victory by Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 United States Presidential election, the discourse around words and phrases such as â€Å"political realignment† and â€Å"critical elections† have  become more commonplace not only among  political analysts but also in mainstream media. Political Realignments A political realignment occurs when a particular group or class of voters changes or in other words realigns with a political party or candidate who they vote for in a particular election – known as a critical election or this realignment may be spread out over a number of elections. On the other hand, â€Å"dealignment† occurs when a voter becomes disenfranchised with his or her current political party and either chooses not to vote or becomes an independent. These political realignments take place in elections involving the U.S. Presidency and the U.S. Congress and are signified by power changes of the Republican and Democratic parties that constitute ideological changes both issues and party leaders.  Other important factors are legislative changes which affect campaign financing rules and voter eligibility. Central to realignment is that there is a change in voter’s behavior. 2016 Election Results In the 2016 election, although Trump is winning at the time of this writing the Electoral College by a margin of 290 to 228 votes; Clinton is winning the overall popular vote by more than 600,000 votes. In addition, in this election, American voters gave the Republican Party a clean power sweep – the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. One key to the Trump victory was that he won the  popular vote in three of the so-called â€Å"Blue Wall† States: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.  Blue Wall States are those who have solidly supported the Democratic Party over past ten or so presidential elections. With respect to the electoral votes:  Pennsylvania has 20, Wisconsin has 10, and Michigan has 16.  Although these states were essential in propelling Trump to victory, it is important to note that his margin of victory from these three states totaled approximated 112,000 votes. If Clinton had won these three States, she would be the President-elect instead of Trump.   In the ten Presidential elections prior to 2016, Wisconsin had only voted Republican on two occasions – 1980 and 1984; Michigan voters had voted Democrat in six straight Presidential elections prior to 2016; and as well, in the ten Presidential elections prior to 2016, Pennsylvania had only voted Republican on three occasions – 1980, 1984 and 1988. V. O. Key, Jr. and Realigning Elections American political scientist  V.O. Key, Jr. is most well-known for his contributions to behavioral  political science, with his major impact being on election studies.  In his 1955 article A Theory of Critical Elections, Key explained how the Republican Party became dominant between 1860 and 1932; and then how this dominance shifted to the Democratic Party  after 1932 by using empirical evidence to identify a number of election which Key termed as â€Å"critical,† or â€Å"realigning† which resulted in American voters changing their political party affiliations. While Key specifically starts with 1860 which was the year that Abraham Lincoln was elected, other scholars and political scientists have identified and/or recognized that there have been systematic patterns or cycles which have regularly taken place in the U.S. national elections.  Ã‚  While these scholars are not in agreement as to the duration of these patterns: periods that range from every 30 to 36 years as opposed to 50 to 60 years; it does appear that the patterns have some relationship with generational change. Election of 1800 The earliest election which scholars have identified as realigning was in 1800 when Thomas Jefferson defeated the incumbent John Adams. This election transferred power from George Washington and Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Party to the Democratic-Republican Party which was led by Jefferson. Although some argue that this was the birth of the Democratic Party, in reality, the party was established in 1828 with the election of Andrew Jackson. Jackson defeated the incumbent, John Quincy Adams and resulted in the Southern States taking power from the original New England colonies. Election of 1860 As stated above, Key explained how the Republican Party became dominant starting in 1860 with the election of Lincoln. Although Lincoln was a member of the Whig Party during his early political career, as President he led the U.S. to abolish slavery as a member of the Republic Party. In addition, Lincoln and the Republic Party brought nationalism to the United States on the eve of what would become the American Civil War. Election of 1896 The overbuilding of railroads caused several of them, including the Reading Railroad, to go into receivership which caused hundreds of banks to fail; resulting in what was the first U.S. economic depression and is known as the Panic of 1893. This depression caused soup lines and public ire towards the present administration and made the Populist Party the favorite to take power in the 1896 Presidential election. In the 1896 Presidential election, William McKinley defeated William Jennings Bryan and while this election was not a true realignment or did it even meet the definition of a critical election; it did set the stage for how candidates would campaign for office in subsequent years. Bryan had been nominated by both the Populist and Democratic parties. He was opposed by the Republican McKinley who was backed by a very wealthy individual who used that wealth to conduct a campaign that was intended to make the populace fearful of what would happen if Bryan won. On the other hand, Bryan used the railroad to make a whistle-stop  tour giving twenty to thirty speeches daily.  These campaign methods have evolved into the modern day. Election of 1932 The 1932 election is widely considered as the most well-known realignment election in U.S. history. The country was in the middle of the Great Depression as a result of the 1929 Wall Street Crash. Democratic candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal policies overwhelmingly defeated incumbent Herbert Hoover by a margin of 472 to 59 Electoral Vote. This critical election was the underpinnings of a massive overhaul of American politics.  In addition, it changed the face of the Democratic Party.   Election of 1980 The next critical election occurred in 1980 when Republican challenger Ronald Reagan defeated the Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter by the tremendous margin of 489 to 49 Electoral Votes. At the time, approximately 60 American’s had been held hostage since November 4, 1979, after the U.S. Embassy in Tehran had been overrun by Iranian students. The Reagan election also marked a realignment of the Republican Party to being more conservative than ever before and also brought about Reaganomics which was designed to fix severe economic issues that confronted the country.  In 1980, the Republicans also took control of the Senate, which marked the first time since 1954 that they had control of either house of Congress. (It would not be until 1994 before the Republican Party would have control of both the Senate and the House simultaneously.) Election of 2016 – Realigning Election? The real question with respect as to whether the 2016 election victory by Trump is a â€Å"political realignment† and/or a â€Å"critical election† is not easy to answer a week after the election.  The United States is not experiencing internal financial distress or facing negative economic indicators such as high unemployment, inflation, or increasing interest rates. The country is not at war, although there are threats of foreign terrorism and social unrest due to racial issues.  However, it does not appear that these were major issues or concerns during this election process.   Instead, one could argue that neither Clinton or Trump were viewed by voters as being â€Å"Presidential† due to their own ethical and moral issues.  In addition, since lack of honesty was a major hurdle which Clinton attempted to overcome throughout the campaign, it is quite plausible that out of fear of what Clinton would do if elected, voters chose to give the Republicans control of both houses of Congress.

The Impact Of Friendship On People s Lives - 1336 Words

The Impact of Friendship Close social relationships have a dramatic affect on people’s lives. Specifically, friendships are amazing in that each one is different yet all friendships share several qualities. Although friendships are a very positive thing to have, they also come with costs. Friendships have always intrigued me, so I found it fascinating to learn about the impact they have and it gave me a new perspective to look at my own friendships. Friendships can be very different from one another but they all have recognizable characteristics. Floyd (2011) defines these characteristics of friendship as voluntary, between peers, governed by rules, differ by sex, and have a lifespan. People become friends with one another out of choice,†¦show more content†¦These rules can vary from behavior to the feelings one has about their friend. Criticizing a friend behind their back or being dishonest are widely looked down upon. These rules are unchanged by differences in sex but other aspects of the friendship differ. Floyd (2011) states that same-sex friends value different aspects of their friendships. Friendships between women tend to emphasize conversation and emotional expressiveness. Men’s friendships place more of a focus on shared activities and interests according to Floyd (2011). I personally find this quite accurate to examples in my life. On the other hand, opposite-sex friendships are valuable as they allow both men and women to see things from each other’s perspectives. Floyd (2011) says that opposite-sex friendships allow men to be emotionally expressive and women to partake in shared activities. Many reasons can prevent an opposite-sex friendship from becoming a romantic relationship. A lack of physical attraction, wanting to protect an existing friendship, and fear of rejection, are a few of the reasons Floyd (2011) lists. The final characteristic is that friendships have lifespans. An unfortunate reality, but as Floyd (2011) puts it, most friendships are initiated, maintained, and eventually many of them end. Nagging, criticizing, abuse of alcohol and drugs, and hostile behaviors can lead to declining friendships, which

Report for Concept of Mobile Computing - myassignmenthelp.com

Question: Write about theReport for Concept of Mobile Computing. Answer: Introduction This is about my learning on the topic for mobile computing. In the present era, Smartphone and tablets have become a driving force for the high productivity of the employees. The analysis is based on rich base for knowledge and insights associated with consumers, employees and operations (Dihn et al., 2013). It needs to be understood here that it becomes a spark for business as well as services. Effectiveness of the learning experience The overall learning from the research says that the future of the business computing is always away from headquarter and slowly moving towards embracing the concept of mobile computing. The main reasons for the study are that I got to learn different kind of possible occurrences and overall discussion among the CIOs also known as chief information officers (Gikas Grant, 2013). This is for the users to properly or rightly access the corporate with the help of mobile computing on Smartphone and other form of computers. Usefulness of the learning process Here, the major focus is on how international economy is little shaky and large firms are actually focusing on the activities for reducing cost and one of the important cost cutting activities involves premises and people. One ways here is that organizations can gain is to decrease regional offices as well as it is also based on getting the staff to work from any part of the world with the help of mobile computing (Weiggel et al., 2015). I understood the concept of working through mobiles since a very long time and while working on long term project, I realized that the advantages are not completely implemented and identified. Learning process The learning process is done by using Kolb model for learning which is done through recognizing the activities which help in setting a proper process of lifecyle. These processes are processing and perception. Perception is associated with the way we or an organization take the information and processing is associated with how an organization or we address the information (Rahimi et al., 2014). The learning process helped in understanding that the demand that is based on accessing the business information as well as its implementation with the help of mobile technologies is surging or based on consumer preferences and there is attitude spill over into the business staff. There is a massive amount of development related to adoption of different technologies worldwide has different business managers wondering on how impact fully position of the company can benefit from such trends (Pejovic Musolesi, 2015). Evaluation of learning process The speed of broadband is increasing and hotspots are becoming a commonplace and with increase amount of communication further implies that data can move from place to another in fast manner. In addition, the concept of mobile video calls along with video conferencing can be doable in a perfect manner. There is no reason to make work from a single office since mobile computing is now help the workers to study in a feasible manner. It seems that many employees working from home can put more efforts and can be more effective since there is lack of interruptions from other employees. In addition, there is also a threat of different kind of terrorism like political terrorism. So a risk management executive in a company will have to ensure that the business continuity is intact and the employees can work flexibly in addition to proper security step taken. Explanation about the learning It is important to understand here that the suffering or the loss through assaults can happen at any place like highway network, traffic control system, public transport and bridges. Everything can stop the workforce to work and these costs a lot for organization. The company can create an out of office strategy which helps the company to future proof the business and its continuity. There are number of environmental issues as well and it is important to understand that the concept of global warming is associated with the concept of global wetting however; climate change is associated with crucial impact on patterns of working. There are number of disruption that goes through a lot of natural calamities like hurricane, flood, snowfall and many more. This is why flexible working patterns become even more important and mobile computing is a boon in this case. Application of learning It is important to understand here that the unlike early days, many companies in the present time is not taking any haphazard approach towards mobile computing since the approach is so planned by trying different technologies to organize. It is the time to craft a more comprehensive approach from the ground level and to be bold means that right amount of time is taken and it helps in identifying that mobile computing has the power to change the business processes completely. Conclusion The overall learning says that the concept of mobile computing makes it crucial to aim on laying a strong foundation to build upon and for this, understanding different devices, mobile commerce and network are some of the projects. The concept of integration, security, designs and analysis are basic for the masters to make sure that such projects can succeed. The mobility drive is part of diverse technologies as a part of agenda for most organizations in the present time. The concept of enterprise mobility is one of the biggest challenges for mobile computing with many challenges. Security is one of the biggest issues and every company has to deal with it on priority basis. Reference Dinh, H.T., Lee, C., Niyato, D. and Wang, P., 2013. A survey of mobile cloud computing: architecture, applications, and approaches.Wireless communications and mobile computing,13(18), pp.1587-1611. Gikas, J. and Grant, M.M., 2013. Mobile computing devices in higher education: Student perspectives on learning with cellphones, smartphones social media.The Internet and Higher Education,19, pp.18-26. Pejovic, V. and Musolesi, M., 2015. Anticipatory mobile computing: A survey of the state of the art and research challenges.ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR),47(3), p.47. Rahimi, M.R., Ren, J., Liu, C.H., Vasilakos, A.V. and Venkatasubramanian, N., 2014. Mobile cloud computing: A survey, state of art and future directions.Mobile Networks and Applications,19(2), pp.133-143. Weigel, M., Lu, T., Bailly, G., Oulasvirta, A., Majidi, C. and Steimle, J., 2015, April. Iskin: flexible, stretchable and visually customizable on-body touch sensors for mobile computing. InProceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(pp. 2991-3000). ACM.

The Great Ideas Vs. Political Totalitarianism an Example of the Topic Government and Law Essays by

The Great Ideas Vs. Political Totalitarianism Great Ideas The European Enlightenment, French Revolution, and Victorian Liberalism shared a common vision of the individual, political life, and the ideal society. The two great political philosophies of the 20th century, fascism (Nazism) and communism, differed in their vision (of the individual, political life, and ideal society), but both produced totalitarianist societies. The European Enlightenment came about as a reaction to the feudalist worldview of the Middle Ages. Both the French Revolution and Victorian Liberalism were off-shoots of the Enlightenment. Under feudalism society was based on a hierarchy: the lord, landowner, ruled his vassals (or serfs), who worked the land. A middle class did not exist. The Enlightenment idea of freedom, to make public use of one's reason in all matters (Losonsky, 2001, p.1), created the public sphere where ideas could be exchanged. Public opinion became increasingly more important in the 18th and 19th centuries, which in turn gave rise to the public ma rket place, where goods could be sold, thus creating a middle class. Need essay sample on "The Great Ideas Vs. Political Totalitarianism" topic? We will write a custom essay sample specifically for you Proceed Freedom was an important concept of the Enlightenment, French Revolution, and Victorian Liberalism. However, it was not the 21st century idea of freedom. The freedom that could be granted the masses was that they recognize the moral and intellectual superiority of the few who, in virtue of a happy combination of personal gifts with accidental advantages, ought to be regarded as their natural leaders, andtheir guidance, not slavishly but willingly, and with an intelligent co-operation. (Stapleton, 1998, p.80) Great Ideas The two great political experiments of the 20th century, fascism and communism, stand in contrast with the great ideas of the Enlightenment, French Revolution and Victorian Liberalism for both viewed the public sphere as something to be completely controlled by the state. German fascism came about as a reaction to the depressed economic conditions which resulted from the defeat and destruction of World War One. Many Germans had a negative view of the democratic Weimar Republic, i.e. they believed the Republic could not adequately cope with the depression. The institution of the Republic was the epitome of what German radical nationalism opposed: it represented liberal incompetence, socialist subversion, class divisiveness and international conspiracy against the German Volk. (Kallis, 2000, p.31) The Nazi Party, under Adolph Hitlers leadership, promised to restore Germany. Territorial expansion proved to be one of the ways that Hitler would try to bring German restoration, while usher ing in a totalitarianist regime that subordinated the individuals ideas and desires to the government. Karl Marx and Max Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto, in the 18th century, which influenced the Russian communist leader, Vladmir Lenin. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels divide industrialized societies into two classes: the proletariats and bourgeoisie. The proletariats are the workers, and the bourgeoisie are the ruling class. The goal of Marxist communism is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, and putting power into the hands of the proletariat, although not the entire proletariat class, but a handful, or the ruling proletariats. Russia under the Bolsheiviks, lead by Lenin, overthrew the Tsar and set up a communist form of government. Russia, however, had never truly become an industrialized society, and Marx wrote about the problems of industrialization. What Russia ended up implementing was a totalitarianist government that did away with private property, and implemented collectivized ownership. It can be argued that the communism of the former United Soviet Socialist Republic was never truly Marxist communism. Works Cited Kallis, Aristotle. Fascist Ideology: Territory and Expansionism in Italy and Germany, 1922-1945. [book] Routledge, 2000. Losonsky, Michael. Enlightenment and Action from Descartes to Kant: Passionate Thought. [book] Cambridge University Press, 2001. Stapleton, Julia. James Fitzjames Stephen: Liberalism, Patriotism, and English Liberty, [journal article] Victorian Studies, Vol. 41, 1998.