In America's political system, public officials are dependent upon receiving enough votes to either enter office or remain in office. In addition, both major political parties are dependent upon having enough of a favorable public standing to either retain its share of elected officials who are current in office or vote new members into office.
In modern history, public opinion on both the Democratic and Republican parties have waxed and waned, depending both on current social and economic events and the public perception of the job performance of elected officials. When a politician, or an entire party, loses the support of the people, and either the elected official or party refuses to listen to constituents or respond effectively to the issues of the day, the people tend to vote for candidates who belong to the opposition party. In contrast, when an elected official not only listens to constituents, but institutes effective policy, that official, or his/her party tends to hold on to their power and position.
For example, president Ronald Reagan entered office in 1981 amidst historically high inflation and unemployment, as well as a perception that the U.S. was weak when it came to foreign policy. Unemployment reduced dramatically by the mid 1980's, while the Soviet Union, America's chief military rival, was on its way to collapsing. Therefore, Reagan left office in 1989 with a 68 percent approval rating, plus the perception that his Republican party and its new brand of conservatism was the way to go. As a result, George H. W. Bush, Reagan's vice president, won the 1988 presidential election in a landslide, and the Republican party continued to enjoy massive power and support into the beginning of the 1990's.
Although Bush enjoyed very high approval ratings for much of his first term, an economic recession, coupled with his decision to compromise with Democrats and institute a tax hike, when went against the conservative principle of minimal taxation, caused his support to plunge in 1992. This led to a surge of support for a new breed of Democratic politicians, including Bill Clinton, who won the presidency in 1992.
As a constitutional republic, public opinion is central to America's political system both in theory and practice.
The term "public opinion" as used today can refer to the "aggregate of of the individual views, attitudes, and beliefs about a particular topic, expressed by a significant proportion of a community" or, in political science contexts, it may refer to the various views of individuals in a society, "a collection of many differing or opposing views" (W. Phillips Davison, Encyclopedia Britannica). More concretely and generally, public opinion refers to how citizens of a given country feel about the state of current affairs, usually measured through standardized surveys and polls.
The form of questions in public opinion polls can take on nearly infinite varieties. Typical questions in U.S. political contexts often emphasize current affairs and broad matters of approving or disapproving government decisions and actors. Pew's recently released national poll results on support for President Donald Trump and his border wall policy are illustrative: questions asked respondents whether they supported the border wall policy generally, along with much more-specific variations on that theme. The poll results are informative and demonstrate, among other things, the "wide partisan differences" among Americans.
The processes of tracking public opinion owe much to the theoretical foundations of the American republic. According to the "conventional view" of democracy explained by political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels, everything "begins with the voters." This conventional view offers a three-step process for turning public desires into public policy. First, voters have general policy preferences (as seen in the sample poll results above), which inform their political engagement. Second, these preferences are translated into action through voting - voters pursue their preferences when they "choose leaders [to] do those things," or they might vote directly for their desires through referendums, as is common in California, for example. Finally, the majority's decision, the electoral outcome, then "becomes government policy" (Achen & Bartels, Democracy for Realists, pp. 1-2).
Taken together, public opinion is among the absolutely essential mechanisms through which policy preferences are translated into laws and regulations.
William McKinley, the 25th president, said the American political system is special for one reason: "Unlike any other nation, here the people rule, and their will is the supreme law."
America was founded as a democracy—a system where the public chooses its leaders through elections. Those leaders then decide the laws that get made and repealed; which wars get started and which end; who gets taxed and who doesn't; and in some cases, who sits on our highest courts of law.
If you want the power to do all these things, however, you have to get the majority of people in the United States to agree with you. That requires shaping and shifting public opinion, which is defined as "an aggregate of the individual views, attitudes, and beliefs about a particular topic, expressed by a significant proportion of a community." For example, public opinion used to be that same-sex marriage was wrong, and shouldn't be legalized. But public opinion has changed, and now, about two-thirds of Americans support same-sex marriage. Public opinion is the reason why the American political system exists in the first place. The founders wanted a country where common people made society's most important decisions—not rich, unelected monarchs. That's why Abraham Lincoln famously called our government one "of the people, by the people, and for the people." It's why the first three words of the U.S. Constitution's preamble are "We, the people."
Today, the desire to shape public opinion is why politicians get interviewed by journalists on CNN and Fox News. It's why candidates run flashy ads on commercial break. It's why interests groups buy billboards with political messages on the side of major highways. And it's why President Donald Trump uses Twitter. They want to make their case to the biggest number of Americans, and shift public opinion, so they can achieve or hold on to power. And nothing, in any political system, is more important than power.
The American political system is a democratic republic—citizens elect the people who represent them in government—so public opinion is very important. If political leaders wish to remain in office, they must keep their constituents (and their donors) happy. In order to do this, they need to understand the direction, substance, and intensity of public opinion. For this reason, few politicians make major decisions without consulting polling data in order to ascertain public opinion. However, politicians and interest groups also attempt to shape public opinion. They do this through the use of propaganda and other tools, including, increasingly, social media. This is crucial even for political figures who do not face reelection very often, like the president. Decisions made by the president can have an effect on the popularity of others in their party, like members of Congress, who have shorter terms. Therefore, public opinion matters on an almost daily basis, not just every four years or even every election cycle. Public opinion remains a driving force in American politics.
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