Elections

Elections are linkage insinuations because the let a people vote for other people hat they believe is a good fit to represent them in the government which links people to the government. YASSSS!!! In my opinion, I don't think that elections influence people political beliefs but the opposite. Elections are influenced by people political beliefs. To sum things up people will vote based on their political beliefs. For this blog post, I decided to talk about the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary Election specifically Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

First starting with Hilary Clinton. Clinton is associated with the democratic party. Clinton is a woman of change and recognizing what needs to be done fast. Somethings that she believes in is, prevention of Addiction and substance use, funding for cleaning the climate to help climate change, and something that is very close to my heart is helping citizens with autism. A lot of her promises are supported by that fact that she will start some sort of funding for these to become a reality.

An artifact that I choose to represent her dedication to change is this ad campaign for her presidency.

This video shows the image that Clinton wants to paint in the public eye. This video represents how Clinton is for the people and will do what she can to make it better for the nation. Her ad showcases people of different races and different situation this creates a sort of emotion that persuades the public that the is her for them. Another way this is shown is in the ad is the words that pop on the screen such as community, and quality, this helps shape the nations image.

The second candidate is Bernie Sanders. Sanders is part of the democratic party. Something that has been the only thing Sanders was talking about is making rich people pay more which in my opinion isn't very persuading for me to vote for him if I have the chance. Anywho some other things that he is fighting for aside from income and wealth equality are racial justice, LGBT equality, and Medicare for ALL. From my research, he believes that this can be achieved through a community.

An artifact that I chose to use was his presidential ad campaign video.

In this video, it really showcases how his values that he explains through his presidential campaign is really driven from his personal life. This creates a type of deep connection with him and the public, this also paints a picture of not what our nation is now but what it could be on a greater scale of we were all united as a community. This shows Bernie's point of view on our nation and how it should be run. We can see a very close connection that Clinton's campaign and Sanders have. One other thing to notice is even though Sanders and Clinton are part of the same political party they have very different views about community and equality.

Linkage Institution: The Media

A linkage institution according to my dear friend Google is "is a structure within a society that connects the people to the government or centralized authority" this includes elections, political parties, interest groups, and of course the media. Since linkage institutions are meant for elected officials to get the votes from the public the media serves a great outlet for this to happen on a wider scale. The media can be manipulated in many ways that can grasp peoples attention therefore elected officials can use what the public likes in order to gain there vote. I chose two news outlets to investigate, CNN and Fox News. CNN leans more to the left as for Fox News leans to the conservative side. For this blog post, I decided to investigate the topic of immigration within these two news outlets.

The first news outlets I will be dissuading is from CNN. The article I read titled "Undocumented immigrant teen obtains abortion after legal battle" posted on Oct. 25, 2017, by Ariane de Vogue and Ray Sanchez, discusses the journey of an immigrant who is a seeking aid in order to obtain an abortion. The woman decision conflict with Texas law, her immigration status, as well as the organization that was providing her a living space. It is hard to say if this article is related to the current event I chose. The reason for this is because the article discusses more the issue of her obtaining the abortion and briefly mentions the issue that comes with her being undocumented. The source itself is very credible and provides direct statements from the court case. This article discusses both views on the subject the writing does not state in any way their opinion on the matter. The use of the rhetorical device is very little and it seems to only use only fragment statements and pathos. I see this used when they describe the abortion as murder. I see the use of pathos not from the authors writing but from the evidence they provide in the article. I assume that this was intentional so that the reader can feel sympathy for the woman. I would say that the writers of this article left out their own point of view but in this article, it just states out the event. As I read through this article and began to analyze it I then realized that this article is trash. The article was just stating both arguments of the situation supporting that with the statement from the court hearing. In this article, the writer chooses to use quotes from the court hearing that is an attack on the victim, along with quotes from the victim supporting her decision. From this is can assume that the writers were in support of the victim's decision but we cannot know for sure. If I am to decide if this article is convincing or not I would say it is. I find that the evidence they used supporting the victim's decision was really persuasive in a way that made me side with the victim, aside from that I cannot find the reasoning of this article I also feel that I have very repetitive today.

The second news outlet that I will be talking about is Fox News. The article that I read title "Lives of anxiety: Immigrants seek sanctuary in US churches" by Claudia Torrens published on November 6, 2017. This article talks about the anxious life that Amanda Morales is living in. Morales is an undocumented immigrant and has an order for deportation, she fled the authority to seek sanctuary along with her three children at a local state church. Throughout the article, it discusses how Morales struggles to live in a small space while caring for her children and to make sure they have a healthy life before the endable happens. This article is very relevant to my current event. It discusses how the life of one can be turned around after one mistake how it leads to a life of fearing the future. This article shows us one example of what immigrants do in order to keep their new life intact and not return to a country of corruption of whatever the problem may be and in this case, it shows us what a mother must do in order to ensure their children that a family will not be torn apart. Some of the oasis are that there is a possibility that she might exaggerate the story, there is also the possibility that the writer is misleading with the story as well. Something that I would have like to see was for the writer to include other people's perspective also living in the church. The article uses the rhetorical devices logos and pathos both working to create a sense of emotion. The use of logos is used to support the idea of another immigrant around the nation also seeking sanctuary in other churches, which also helps the pathos create a sense of emotion that other people are living their lives in fear of leaving people they care about behind. Pathos is also used in Morales’s statements in order to execute her fear. Analyzing the article I also realize it probably wasn't the best choice. I have run to the same problem as before where the writer does not share a side to the argument, but reading it I realize that she doesn't share any negative thought of the situation Amanda Morales is in but shows sympathy and concern. This is a surprise to me, the reason being is because Fox News is a conservative news outlet and seeing how one is concerned about an illegal immigrants future was something I was not expecting. Aside from those stated limitate form before my final statements, I find hard to say is that I can't see anything that could convince me to pick a side of an argument since there is no argument, from what I gather from this article is just sympathy for the woman. This blog post does not showcase how good I am at selecting sources but I promise I'm good at it.

Overall, i think this shows how the media is the strogents way to influence a person believes becasue of rhetoical devices. I help the reader to relate or feel sympathy.

XOXO,
Gossip Girl 

Political Parties and Politicians

Political parties are a wacky thing and can really get a girl SHOOK but political parties help the public side on how they want our nation to be leaded, that is why there are different political parties because the human being undecisive creatures we all believe in different things.

The political party that I chose to write about was the Democratic Party. Since the democratic party is liberal some of their main beliefs are more of helping the public in a more unbiased way such as helping restore economic security for the middle class, economic fairness, protecting voting, confronting global threats, protecting values, removing barriers to opportunities and being a leader in the world just to name a few. How the democratic party differs some other political parties is that the democratic party is rooted in what is better for the community and as for the republican party it is more rooted in individuality (if I'm phrasing that correctly). This also plays a role in how beliefs are different from other parties such as immigration, for example, some arguments that I heard throughout the years is that most liberals tend to think immigrants help the nation and as for most conservatives this they hurt the economy. The reason I choose to focus on the democratic party is that I most relate to it, I feel as though liberals are more understanding and more open to finding common ground with others and I feel it is the total opposite with people who side to be conservative.

I was unable to find a genuine artifact that represents the democratic party but I did take a further look into their beliefs and have deiced to utilize one of those as my artifact, what I have specifically have chosen to use was a quote that shares the democratic stance the LGBT Community. The quote states,

"Democrats applaud last year's decision by the Supreme Court that recognized that LGBT people - like other Americans - have the right to marry the person they love. But there is still much work to be done. LGBT kids continue to be bullied at school, restaurants can refuse to serve transgender people, and same-sex couples are at risk of being evicted from their homes. That is unacceptable and must change."

This quote shows how accepting the democrat party in in regards to the LGBT Community. This quote shows an appeal to emotion, using words like "love," which when disusing the right of LGBT members to marry is usually just used for liberals or for pro-marriage equality arguments. The quote also mentions children and people who are getting evicted from their homes. The use of this emotional appeal is so that a number of supporters rise in order to motivate the reader to fight for the equality of others, which will also cause them to support the Democratic party. Talking about the article as a whole, this discusses how to end inequality for the member of the LGBT Community and how great the support Obama has given the community in order to get us closer to this dream. It is quite difficult to judge the writer when there is no know information about them, I can only assume that the author has dealt with personal site regarding inequality or has just simply heard of other experiences regarding the LGBT Community. While there isn't enough information to back up these beliefs they are still opinions the Democratic party has.  

Hatred, pettiness, animosity, and loathing

Not so long ago the United State of American lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the 2016 Election attacked.

Only a Republican, can master all four elements, and kinda make things worse. But when the world was kinda at peace, Donald J. Trump's votes grew.

But I believe Trump will trash the nation.

I decide to investigate the 45th U.S. President  Donald J. Trump. Trump is affiliated with the Republican party and he believes he can “make America great again”. Aside from that he also likes to bring the message of economic empowerment to every American. The reason I chose to talk about President Trump is because he is always the talk of the town and causes quite the stir. I'm also very interested to find out more of his opinions on national topics since a lot of the hot topics tend to affect me on a personal level.

An artifact that I choose to analyze was a third of tweets written by President Trump of his remarks on transgender troops. in these series of tweets, it mentions whether or not transgender individuals will have the ability to serve in the military by referring to them as burdens. The way that I interpret this artifact is that Trump shows to be agents LGBT rights. I see this in his written when after he refers to them as burdens he continues to discuss their medical need as and how costly it would be a disturb the military's work. The tweets that Trump published did not include estimates of how costly their medical need would be however others estimated the typical health cost from transgender individuals that are on active military duty and calculated the amount of $2.4 million and $8.4 million but only .13% is expected to exceed from $8.4 million. It has been also found out that the military spends more money on erectile dysfunction medication. The military $41.6 million annually on Viagra alone this is five time the estimated spending on transition-related medical care for transgender troops. So like with all this that I have learned it just seems like to me that Trump's ban on transgenders serving in the military was just an act of hate, and for a man who hasn't served in our military I don't think he has the right to say who and who can’t serve. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/26/the-military-spends-five-times-as-much-on-viagra-as-it-would-on-transgender-troops-medical-care/?utm_term=.f6eb1c4b381e)

Interest Groups

I tried to make a funny intro but I can't think of one so this post will be very plain like a plain bagel with a thin layer of cream cheese.

In today's maxi challenge I will be investigating interest groups, more specifically gay marriage. The reason I chose to investigate on the topic "gay marriage" is because people still argue whether it is morally correct or not.

The first interest group I used was the Human Right Campaign (HRC), a liberal organization. Their mission mostly built on creating a safe space for all, but especially the LGBT Community. A blog post I analyzed posted on the HRC based off of an expert from an article written by Chris Kluwe, writer, and LGBT Activist. Kluwe writes about the return of The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and is in favor of revoking Californias Proposition 8.  (that would remove the rights of same-sex couples.) In the expert presented in Chris Kluwe: “Passing Gay Marriage Will Change America," he states that  "The Supreme Court has a chance to right these wrongs, to restore the fundamental decency of equality to all American citizens regardless of their race, gender, or sexuality. I'm hopeful they'll make the right choice." Although this doesn't show a lot of supporting evidence, I think that the expert would have been a lot stronger if there was more evidence presented.

The second interested group that I have investigated was the American Family Association which is a Christian Conservative organization whos solely purpose is to "inform, equip, and activate individuals to strengthen the moral foundations of American culture, and give aid to the church here and abroad in its task of fulfilling the Great Commission." The blog I analyzed from an expert of the article title "Sessions Breaking Free From Obama Administration Negligence" did indeed talk about gay marriage but the post was quite hard to comprehend. Reed mentions hows she was not a huge supporter of Obama's pronouncement that the DOMA would not be enforced by the Department of Justice. I don't really know why but Reed mentions that people of other gender identities (I'm assuming that she is referring to transgender individuals) are not protected under the Civil Right Act. From what i "learned" from this artifact is that it is pretty biased toward same-sex marriage. Also, there is not another part of the article that considers other beliefs or opinions.

From what we can tell both interest groups are very different. One is based on religion and united people under Christian faith while in comparison the other is talking about equality. Both have options to donate, although I will say that AFA isn't quite up in your grill (as the youth would say) about it and the HRC kinda has you at gunpoint asking for your wallet.

Concluding this post I don't really know is if interest groups affect political beliefs. From what I can gather is that is that people have certain beliefs about certain causes and that when they find interest groups where their opinions align. But maybe interest groups affect voters based on what people believing because if someone really persuades someone else then the will believe in what the interest group is preaching. Then the voter would show that support by voting for what they have been persuaded to believe.

Disclaimer: I do not know if whatever I said make sense it is really late and I am tired.