The Collapse of American Democracy: Opinions and Editorials

The Collapse of American Democracy: Opinions and Editorials

TOPIC: AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

INSTRUCTIONS:

• Compose one comprehensive essay that responds to the below prompt. Things to consider:
  • address each claim in the prompt
  • agree, disagree, or explain why you don’t agree or disagree
  • support claims with logic or content from the course
  • source content using some method of citation (full citation not required)
  • no particular format/structure style required (scoring is not based on adherence to MLA, APA, Vancouver, Turabian, Chicago, etc)
  • only content from the court is acceptable, no outside sourcing of content
• Essay Requirements
  • length should be between 10 and 15 pages
  • Double space
  • Times New Roman size 12 font
  • Title page is not mandatory
  • Citation page is not mandatory (but citation is mandatory, no particular format)

SCORING:

Scoring is based on reasoning, completeness of explanation (including logic or cited reference), grammar (if there are major issues, minor issues ok), organization, and clarity of your claims and explanations

• Possible 35 points
• Grades will be assigned as A+, A, B+,B, B-, etc….

Late work will be considerably marked down

Notes:

• Try to demonstrate what you have learned from this course
• focus on the key points that were covered in the class material
• Some of you may wish to follow the order of the points as you see them in the prompt (but not required)
• You’ll naturally want to write more on some aspects than others, as the degree to which the readings and lectures focused on each aspect varied substantially. You can agree with all, some, or none of the statements, but address each statement.
• Remember that essays have a thesis and conclusion. (if you don’t like writing theses, try writing the thesis last!)

PROMPT:

Place yourself in the role of assistant to the op-ed editor for the Orange County Register newspaper. A staff writer submits an op-ed about the current state of democracy in the USA. Your boss asks you to evaluate all the statements in the article based on the knowledge you obtained from your introduction to American government course at UCI. The piece reads as follows:

 

American democracy is clearly failing. The 18th century horse and buggy constitution that the USA is stuck with was not designed to deliver the efficient response to problems that is required in the 21st century for good governance. The system of separate institutions sharing powers repeatedly leads to frustrating gridlock that accomplishes nothing for the American people. The people themselves have proved the doubters of democracy prescient concerning the inability of typical citizens to participate meaningfully in self-government. The lack of public information about political matters in the USA is stunning and disheartening. Of course, this state of affairs can be partially blamed on the American mass media’s regular focus on sensational stories that will earn them the most profit. And to make matters worse, the fragmentation of the media environment has led to a situation where most voters only hear from the side of the political spectrum that they agree with.

This situation could be ameliorated by the political parties taking clear opposing stances that could get through to voters, but all too often the Democrats and Republicans obscure their issue stands with vague rhetoric. Furthermore, when it comes to governing the parties all too often lack coherence in action, as they cannot compel their members to vote the party line. Finally, American elections are full of biases, such as: 1) the outsized importance of unrepresentative early states in the presidential nomination process; 2) the travesty of the Electoral College allowing a candidate to win the presidency without the most popular votes; and 3) the low turnout among certain demographic groups and in comparison to most other established democracies. In sum, the United States should NOT be held up as a model democracy.

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