Keegan – Introduction to U.S. National Politics

SWA#4

Elizabeth Warren Vs. Andrew Yang

Personal Characteristics

Elizabeth Warren does a good job balancing issues and personality. Her father was a working man and the breadwinner. He was laid off and after losing the family car, her mother took a low wage job at Sears to keep the families head above water. She enrolled in a public law school at 24 and spent the next 30 years teaching at various colleges, including Harvard. Her main running point is to end corruption in washington. Supplementary material includes: “strengthen our democracy”, “rebuild the middle class” and “equal justice under the law”. Her appeal is for the working class who have been hit harder by economic fluctuations, automation of work, and a special lustor for minority groups through the third key issue mentioned.

Andrew Yang is the son of two immigrant parents, went to Columbia Law school, and has been apart of 3 startup businesses. One of the companies focused on access to education and became the largest private provider in the country and was awarded for its prowess by the Obama administration. A key principle difference between the two is that because of Andrew Yang’s low name recognition, he has to rely on issues to drive his candidacy (See “Presentation of self”). He has virtue as an immigrant, but also as a businessman. His website focuses on his accomplishments as a businessman and not so much on his life as an immigrant. Although as mentioned before, his appeal is principally issue driven so it is intuitive for his website to be credentialistic. His campaign is centered on “Universal basic income for every American”.

Presentation of Self

Elizabeth Warren straddles between an “A” and “B” approach. The front page of her website has the issues mentioned in the previous section cycle on and off of the page. This aims to promote herself as a “do-er” and not just a talker. The issues are consolidated into 3 or 4 word phrases and builds a sense of approachability to them. While the front page is definitely more of a “B” candidate, she has a whole page dedicated to her story –“Meet Elizabeth Warren”. This is where her straddle comes in. The page projects her humanity by explicating her youth, struggle through school, familial life and her various career accomplishments. This kind of presentation aligns itself more with an“A” candidate. This page focuses on showing Mrs. Warren’s personality and thus is made to build a base for more interpersonal interaction. Her webpage outline, content, and visual information construe a populous appeal to the middle class, and minority groups (specifically African Americans, who are mentioned by name under the “Equal Protection…” tab)

Andrew Yang aligns mostly with the described candidate “B” from Fenno’s study. Due to his low name recognition, he has to drive his recognizability through his position on issues and or personal accomplishments. Like all of the other candidates, he has a part of his page that is centered around his life and how he grew up. The part labeled “Andrews Background”, is almost entirely achievement based. This is congruent to his identity as a type “B” candidate. His success comes from his position on issues and not his ability to connect directly with voters. In terms of support within the Democratic coalition, his appeal is almost directly from low skilled waged workers. He, like the majority of the democratic candidates, have adopted some of Bernie Sanders’s more serious policies (ex. medicare for all).

Media Coverage

Andrew Yang is popular among the democratic voter base. He surpassed Elizabeth Warren when he announced his candidacy. He is running as a democratic parallel to Trump. He is a businessman and is trying to capitalize on the same alleged economic grievance that helped Trump in 2016. (Questionable method according to Identity Crisis). His main running point, Universal Basic income, is actually very unpopular and runs counter to his projected identity as a hard working businessman.

Elizabeth Warren’s main issue is popularity and trustworthiness. There is a wide perception of her as a lifelong politician. She is having a hard time connecting with younger voters, and her policies are often received as echos of other candidates. She is not far left enough to compete with Bernie Sanders, her identity as a woman won’t give her enough to get ahead, that is evidenced by the 2016 election with Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris would win in terms of intersectionality above Warren anyway.

Resources

Blake, Aaron. “Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 Chances, Broken Down.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 31 Dec. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/31/elizabeth-warrens-chances-broken-down/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.bb9b17f79a58.

Marinoff, Nick. “Democrat Andrew Yang: Different Appeal, Same Stupid Ideas.” CCN, 28 Mar. 2019, www.ccn.com/democrat-andrew-yang-different-appeal-same-stupid-ideas.

Shao, Yiqing. “Why Is Elizabeth Warren So Hard to Love?” Boston Magazine, Boston Magazine, 31 Mar. 2017, www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2017/04/02/elizabeth-warren-tough-love/.

SWA #3 State of The Union

Domestic Agenda	Foreign Agenda
Budget for Congress	Developing Countries: Women Business Development
Increased Border Security Funding	U.S.M.C.A for N.A.F.T.A
Infrastructure Bill	Reciprocal Trade Act
Lower pharmaceutical costs	Curtail Presence in the Middle East
Prohibit Late-Term Abortion
Childhood Cancer research funding

II.

The speech given by president Trump had a plethora of words that affirmed his willingness and optimism for compromise within the current divided congress. His opening statements asserted a desire to govern as “one nation” not “two parties”. There were three key issues that the President specifically catered his speech towards compromise and collaboration. The obvious and principle one being on illegal immigration legislation, and the two subsequent being the infrastructure bill and late term abortions.

When talking about the duties of Congress relative to this issue, he says that “We have a moral duty to create an immigration system that protects the lives and jobs of our citizens”. This specific line is preceded by action that the President took in order to increase border security, without the direct consent of Congress. He built urgency before this phrase by explicating the reasons for his actions, and then turns to congress and speaks in the first person plural to address that all of the legislators in the room should feel the same urgency to act as he did. This particular issue, is more of an issue of collaboration than it is compromise. To elaborate, Trump specifically talked about the benefits of walls in decreasing illegal immigration, and further described specifics of the wall itself, and other necessary security precautions that he wishes Congress to take into consideration. His rhetoric in talking about these issues does not give off a sense of compromise, but rather the need for Congress to act in accordance with pressing security concerns. President Trump explained an issue, proposed his solutions for them, and then admonished Congress with the use of a single word: “We…”. He is aware of his inability to act in the scale that is necessary without them, and is more calling for cooperative action than compromise.

The two subsequent issues were more oriented towards compromise that border security was. When touching on his desire to better the infrastructure within the United States, President Trump said “This is not an option. This is a necessity”. Before stating this, he noted that “I am willing to work with you on legislation that will deliver important infrastructure development…”. This leans towards compromise more so than border security because he didn’t propose much of a solution on his own, other then that the bill should support “cutting edge industries of the future.” This gives Congress more freedom by omission of specific infrastructural goals. The mention of late term abortion was a nice blend between the two. President Trump laid out the travesty of the bills passed in New York and Virginia that allow late term and post-birth abortion practices. He was clear on his position about the sanctity of lives, both “born and unborn”. After doing so, he asked Congress to “prohibit late term abortion who can feel pain in the mother’s womb”. This in and of itself is a kind of compromise. Upon recent scrutiny that the Republican party wants to repeal Roe v. Wade, this clarification for the prohibition of late term abortions where the baby can feel pain is a few steps lower then some more common party opinions on the subject. Within all three cases, President Trump’s rhetoric does show that he is optimistic to work with congress, and compromise if necessary.

President Trump definitely believes in a more powerful executive branch relative to the foundations laid out in the Constitution. He didn’t wait for Congress to give him permission to send troops to the southern border to protect it from the incoming caravan. His rhetoric showed no concern of if he overstepped his bounds. This is rather problematic because he constantly addresses the need for Congress to work with him, and believes that they are a powerful branch as well that can act as an impediment to the strong executive branch that he believes in. In terms of Congressional oversight, his strong position on the powers vested in both branches didn’t show a quarrel with Congress being too overreaching or powerful. While not in the speech, it is obvious that Trump has believed in a strong executive branch that can step around Congress if need be. His administration has utilized executive orders on many occasions and as such demonstrate his view of the role of the executive branch.

Lastly, the Democratic response to the S.O.T.U was surprisingly negative and barley touched on anything that the President actually talked about. The first complaint from Mrs. Abrams was the Presidents frail response to children going through active shooter drills in school. Education or school shootings were not mentioned in the address and it seems to drum up preliminary animosity to fuel the more rational critiques given later. Stacey Abrams said nothing about any of the good things that the economy has done for women or any of the minority groups that Trump substantiated in his address. She mentioned farmers and lower income families that rely on community and family and friends and the overall generosity of their immediate vicinity, which somehow coalesced into the idea that it should be the government’s job to fix these particular deficiencies in American life. This lead to a critique of the government shut down, which accused Trump of being the puppet master with no real substantiation as to why. It stretched from here to critiquing his border and immigration policies by repeating things that Trump said in his own speech. The only notable difference is that President Trump said “Legal Immigrants” enrich our communities and Mrs. Abrams said “Immigrants”. This shows a fundamental disagreement on what is good for the country and from the response given my Mrs. Abrams, there is little room to compromise on border security because there is no agreement on terms. If a policy, like Arizona’s SB 1070, aims to redress legitimate concerns on illegal immigration, then according to the rhetoric by Mrs. Abrams, this is discriminatory against immigrants. There seems to be little hope for compromise here. It is important to note that there was no response about MS 13 or the sex and drug trafficking that the President claimed would decrease with border security. Immigration was the principal issue of discontentment, and, at least in terms of rhetoric, shows little hope for compromise. Fortunately there was one important issue that makes compromise look possible. Both Trump’s address and Stacey Abram’s rebuttal voiced a desire to lower the cost and expand the availability of the pharmaceutical industry and general medical practice at large. This, unfortunately, is torn across a ideological line. Stacey Abrams argued that the way to do so is through the expansion of government programs like Medicare and Medicaid, while Trump encourages transparency and market incentivisation. Luckily, this ideological divide can bring about compromise. Both “solutions” are not mutually exclusive and it seems feasible to be able to utilize a little give and take in order to help combine these two methodologies of solving the same issue .

There are two commonalities between the Alaska state legislative agenda and Trump’s address: Criminals and the Middle Class. Trump passed the First Steps Act that freed Matthew Charles is a step in criminal justice reform. The Governor of Alaska, Mike Dunleavy, said in his inaugural address that he wanted a war on criminals. One way he has done this is through reforming Alaska Senate Bill 91, which deals with sexual assault, drug sentencing times, and judicial discretion. While in some cases he has strengthened drug offence laws, there have been similar sized relaxation for first and minor offences. The second similarity is the rise of the middle class. During the first two years of Trump’s presidency, there have been 600,000 more manufacturing jobs created. Majority of these jobs are for middle America. The state of Alaska has the impetus for such success as well, but it has yet to be achieved. Alaska is in a mild recession. Mike Dunleavy plans to lower taxes and reduce government spending in order to both balance the budget and incentivise the market to bring jobs back into the state.

Keegan King SWA#1

Alaska

Part 1: A

The current governor of Alaska is Mike Dunleavy. He is a republican who defeated democrat March Begich during the 2018 gubernatorial election. There is a discourse going on about who the speaker of the house will be for Alaska. The nominee was a Republican named David Talerico, who just yesterday (Kitchenman, 2019) was one vote short of becoming the speaker of the house. No secondary election has yet been announced. The president of the Alaska Senate is Republican Cathy Giessel and the Senate Majority leader is Mia Costello, also a Republican. There are 20 seats in the Alaskan senate. 13 are held by Republicans and 7 are held by the Democrats. There are 40 seats in the House of Representatives, 16 are Democratic, 23 are Republican and 1 is independent. In both cases, the majorities are Republican. This is conducive to an active and achievable legislative agenda, especially under the leadership of a Republican governor. The unity in the state of Alaska behind the Republican party should lead to success for the state legislature.

Part 1:B

The state legislature has placed a few key issues for the upcoming weeks. The Senate Finance Committee met the 24th of January to reconcile issues with the Alaskan Oil and Gas commision, Census accuracy issues, Labor and workforce development (W3.akleg.gov, 2019). In his state of the Senate address, Mike Dunleavy outlined his agenda as governor: He called for a war on criminals, balance the budget, protect private investment security, create jobs and grow the economy, and restore trust in elected government officials (Remarks, 2019). These goals are outlined by the Juneau tribune in just their top 3 stories for Jan. 23rd (Juneau Empire, 2019). Alaska is looking to fix its budget, to which a deficient of 1.6 Billion dollars that was found in the initial budget proposed by Mike Dunleavy. Another concern was the 4 new crime bills that are the initial steps in the war on crime. Under a unified Republican government, the legislature of Alaska should have little issue in enacting its policies.

Part 2:A

The Ohio Senator who represents me is Steve Wilson and the Representative is Tom Brinkman. Steve Wilson was assigned to a committee for Education, Insurance and Financial institutions, Public safety, and the Ways and Means committee. He voted to ban abortions after the detection of a heartbeat. He established a database for violent offenders and was endorsed by the NRA. Tom Brinkman Jr. also voted for the bill that prohibits abortion after a heartbeat. He also amended education laws for primary schools, and signed a bill that prevents the coercion of marriage ceremonies against the beliefs of a licensed minister. Overall these two statesmen do represent my well. Both align with the Republican party which is the avenue for conservative ideals that I believe in. Specifically relating to abortion, gun laws and religious freedom.

Works Cited

Juneau Empire. (2019). Alaska Legislature | Juneau Empire. [online] Available at: https://www.juneauempire.com/tag/alaska-legislature/ [Accessed 25 Jan. 2019].

W3.akleg.gov. (2019). Alaska State Legislature. [online] Available at: http://w3.akleg.gov/index.php?tab2#tab2 [Accessed 25 Jan. 2019].

Remarks, S. (2019). 2019 State of the State Address – Michael J. Dunleavy. [online] Gov.alaska.gov. Available at: https://gov.alaska.gov/newsroom/2019/01/22/2019-state-of-the-state-address/ [Accessed 25 Jan. 2019].