Blog Post 2.1 "The Revolving Door"

A retiring member of the Senate is more likely to become a lobbyist. Lobbying in the 1970s and 1980s was a much smaller and less well-paying industry. The revolving door also involves unregistered lobbyists, who are not represented in the data and may be responsible for up to half of the actual lobbying going on.
Committee chairmen have more connections with those in power and are more familiar with politics. They may also be more well-known and can earn more because of name recognition. The author does not believe that the registration requirements have kept former politicians from participating in lobbying and related activities, claiming that "Many former members prefer not to register, but still do work that looks very much like lobbying".
Public interest groups spend only one dollar for every $34 corporations spend, a difference of $33. Perhaps in order to get more money, politicians are more likely to become lobbyists for corporations.

Blog Post 1.7 "Does Campaigning Work?"

Campaign activities have virtually no effect on those that they attempt to reach according to Kalla and Brockman. They analyzed the 2016 and 2015 elections and reached this conclusion. They estimate that one in eight hundred was persuaded. Campaign actions that occurred some time before the election were more effective than right before elections. When voters are less set on their choice of candidate, such as during the primaries and ballot-initiative phases, campaign activities could have a greater effect.

Canvassing was effective when at least two months remained before a primary but not a general election. Therefore, Brockman and Kalla think that campaigns should try to boost voter turnout instead of trying to persuade and focus their efforts on primaries. For example, in Oregon, information about pro-choice Senate candidate Merkley was sent to pro-choice voters to correct a misconception about Merkley's views and contrast him with his opponent. The result was a three percent increase in Merkley's share of the vote. In another case, research on flyers in North Carolina indicated that flyers had a greater impact on African-American voters, so the distribution of flyers was optimized to reach the most receptive audience. 

Campaigns will often spend about sixty dollars per person they attempt to register and can be ineffective when a candidate is from a party that does not have a large number of existing party members. Persuasion can have a double effect of taking away a vote from one party and giving it to another, essentially affecting two votes instead of one.

Blog Post 1.6 "Free Speech Week"

1.The organizers of the event seem to want to provoke leftists at a center of leftism into behavior that will reveal their hypocrisy.

2. A public university should not deny a speaker or organization's request and also begin to consider logistical and scheduling concerns (unrelated to the content of a proposed speech).

3. An event organizer cannot be denied based on the content of speeches, the reason for a denial from the university has to be applicable to any organization. After rejecting a proposal, the university must provide an alternative.

4. A university may be unable to provide the preferred location, and the speaker may accuse the university of silencing an unfavorable opinion.

5. The speaking group may be responsible for the cost of security that it can afford.

6. The university/city is expected to pay.

7. The speaker cannot call for immediate law-breaking.

8. The crowd can jeer loudly enough to drown out a speaker.

9. When the police are overwhelmed by a violent crowd, they may shut down the event.

What Happened (with the voters)

Trump and Hillary were perhaps the least liked presidential candidates in US history. As a result, Stein and Johnson tripled their share of the votes. This increase in voting for minor parties sapped votes away from Clinton, whose efforts to portray Trump as an ineffective and dangerous leader failed to persuade Americans that she herself would make a good President and instead boosted votes for third-party candidates.

Trump was not quite a novel champion for whites; he received one percent less of the white vote than  Romney. Similarly to Trump with Romney, Hillary won the majority of non-white votes, but lagged behind Obama's performance in 2012. College graduates tended towards Hillary more so than Obama, perhaps due to an increase in college-educated white support.

By the end of the nomination process, both parties had chosen candidates Americans were familiar with and disliked, an unusual occurrence. However, most pundits and the media did not correctly predict which candidates would be unpopular with which groups. Non-whites that voted for Romney showed solidarity with Trump while Hillary lost some of the female support that Obama won during his election despite being a historical-first female candidate.

Blog Post 1.4 "Why People Don't Vote"

56.8% percent of Americans voted in the 2012 election, and 84% of registered voters voted. Often, Americans forget to register because of the limits on registration time. They may also be indifferent about the election until the last moment, when it is too late to register. The majority of the nonvoting electorate, however, stays indifferent about the election and candidates, unwilling to form an opinion.

Those who grow up poorer and with fewer American roots are less likely to feel that their vote will count because unfavorable circumstances make them think that no change is possible and there is no community expectation of civic responsibility.

Furthermore, America has too many elections that most voters can't keep up with. As a result, Americans may be desensitized towards democracy and carry out a streak of non-voting because of defeatist attitudes following a previous failure to vote.

The lack of choice when it comes to party affiliation may also dissuade American voters, who increasingly have unique sets of values, from being able to choose one party over the other. Parties encourage those who vote reliably (those who care about an issue on which a party takes a different stance from the other) to turn out but focus less on the rest of Americans, who may choose the other side despite the parties' efforts.

Oregon has been experimenting with mail-in votes to make voting more convenient, but some focus more on making elections more fun by having election festivals. While this may increase voter turnout, the task of evaluating candidates may devolve into selecting the most fun party to attend, and considering the increasing disability of the average American to listen to views contrary to their own, voting festivals will likely become segregated along ideological lines, furthering political polarization. These festivals would also risk simply becoming last-minute rallies for candidates, where formerly unenthusiastic voters are cajoled into uninformed decisions through alcohol and manipulative social interactions.

Of course, the United States can simply enact mandatory laws and rely on the desire in Americans to follow the law, even when enforcement is lax and there is only a minor punishment.

Blog Post 1.3 "Trump & DACA"

1. Trump has rushed to change DACA since some Republican officials have threatened to sue the federal government over it.

2. The DREAM act was similar to DACA in trying to help illegal immigrants brought into the United States as children by streamlining the citizenship process for them.

3. DACA protects DREAMers from deportation and gives them a legal work permit.

4.Arrived in US before 2007, were 15 or younger when they arrived, younger than 31 in June 2012, nearly spotless criminal record, and enrolled in high school or have a high school diploma or equivalent

5. The DREAM act was rejected, but DACA was passed in its place to offer some protection to DREAMers.

6. They cannot sign up for financial aid because they have no Social Security numbers. Knowing that they are illegal may compel some to drop out of school.

7. They lose motivation, feeling that their identity will prevent them from reaching success.

8. ?

9. DREAMers are still illegal immigrants, but their presence became lawful.

10. They found better jobs with higher incomes than non-DACA illegal immigrants.

11. They are suing for DACA to be changed.

12. No new applications for DACA will be accepted, although DACA status may be renewed for some time. As the protection expires, deportation will pose a threat to the geographical location of illegal immigrants.

13. DACA collected a lot of information about addresses and other personal information.

Blog Post 1.2 "Local Govts & Devolution"

Both the right and left wings of American politics call for different actions regarding sanctuary cities, with those being getting rid of them in the name of the law and preserving them as a protest against Trumpian policy, respectively. What the two ideological camps do seem to agree with, however, is that the federal government should decisively do something about them, such as showing tolerance, changing the law, bringing in more officials, or enforcing penalties.

Distributism is an alternative to this idea of government interference, where very local governments carry out political and economic decisions, supplemented by nationalism and a distrust for big business and empires.

More left-leaning Americans tend to feel that states' rights will interfere with progressive policies and even dispossess certain groups, while right-leaning Americans may feel that states' rights need protection. Despite this, liberals have come to see devolution in a positive light when it allows cities to have tolerant policies towards their ideals that are otherwise prohibited or obstructed by federal law. In a more universal sense, the need for minorities to fight for their own position on abortion in order to have favorable national policies has fed political polarization as people vote or abstain according to this single issue and ignore the other positions of a candidate.

The main opponent of federalism is in fact bipartisan. Both liberals and conservatives want nationwide adherence to their views, so they push issues into national consideration rather than letting states choose what to do. Democrats, for example, might fear that conservative states will cut back on social programs. However, since conservative states tend to have a high proportion of their population collecting welfare and may also have businesses that depend on existing social programs, changes will not be so drastic.

Despite this, people are in fact quite mobile and most can leave a state with unfavorable policies for a state better suited for them. When there is a place for them to go, they will end up in places where they are happier while allowing those with no objections to live in peace. This movement will lead to balance and reduce controversy. Since delegating more powers to cities would be a necessary step in delegating them to the people (and thereby creating the distributist society envisioned by Chesterton), cities must also be allowed some sovereignty.

Federalism can be painful when it means that those living near you are allowed to enforce policies that seem blasphemous or distasteful to you. For this reason, there must also be a balance between unitary and federal distributions of power in order to keep localities from engaging in miniature versions of current political warfare.