Split Brewer, Mark & Jeffrey Book Review

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Of course such a deemphasizing of class was not true of all American intellectuals and media -- leftists have always tended to see conservative's focus on values rather than class as the real, dividing issue of American politics as a diversionary tactic. Conservatives have focused on what they see as an overturning of accepted American institutions like the family by access to abortion, women working outside of the home, and the decline of religion in civic life. Conservative ideologues and media figures suggest that class affiliations are less important to Americans than shared belief systems, like religion (Brewer & Stonecash 15).

But in 2004, class identification seemed to play a clear role in voter choice, more so than specific cultural concerns (Brewer & Stonecash 17). In general, polled voters seemed to believe that the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. They agreed there was a trend of greater inequality in the distribution of income. Voters expressed concerns about issues of class and inequality almost across the board, regardless of affiliation (Brewer & Stonecash 70). And data, rather than supporting a clearly liberal or conservative reading of the American electorate is ridden with contradictions, suggesting that Americans define certain political 'buzzwords' differently than many politicians -- for example, while the number of Americans self-identifying as conservative has increased, Americans who advocate tolerance of gays and support abortion rights has increased (Brewer & Stonecash 165). Class more so than single issues determined voter's decision-making -- lower-income individuals vote Democratic, and more affluent voters (or voters who perceive themselves as more affluent) vote Republican.

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This contradicts the idea of a red vs. blue nation where "issues agitating voters now are cultural in nature," pitting "those who are pro-choice, tolerant or supportive of gays, and detached from religion are on one side of the dominant political cleavage, and opposed by those who are pro-life, opposed to homosexuality, and desire a larger place for religion in public life (Brewer & Stonecash 14). In 2004 perceived class affiliation had a larger impact than ever before, far beyond specific single issue-based politics.

In many ways, given the patchwork of different ethnicities and cultural belief systems of individuals who brought Barak Obama to the presidency, the thesis of Split seems vindicated. People voted on 'class' issues, or the class they perceived themselves to be a part of, and when the greed of the wealthier individuals seemed to be revealed and the extent to which the system both served the wealthy and did not protect the less well-off members of the middle class from greed and corruption, voters reacted against the Republicans in office. This did not prevent California from enacting a voter-generated law to prohibit gay marriage, despite widespread Californian support for Obama. Class and perceived class alliances influenced voting more than issue politics, and when individuals saw themselves as less prosperous and less well-off, they reacted by voting Democratic. Class drives cultural considerations, but no cultural position is shared by all members of the same political affiliation. In the case of the past presidential election, a collective sense of a loss of class in….....

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