Political Culture

I agree with Zach in his saying that America's political culture is conflictual. In America, people can be categorized into either red states or blue states. This separation of political opinions itself already begins to demonstrate the conflictual political culture in America. Life in the red states is very different from life in the blue states and this leads to a lot of judgments and disagreements between the two. As both Brooks and Frank said, red America thinks blue America is snobby, self-centered and ungrateful. On the other hand, blue America thinks red America is uneducated, overweight and too open about religion. It is so unreasonable for everyone to think the same exact thing and share the same opinions and therefore we see the clear distinctions between the American people. Not only do these two broad groups exist, but also smaller groups within the red and blue states similar to cliques in a high school cafeteria as Frank explains. With all of these different beliefs, it is impossible for America's political culture to be conflictual. A common example used when discussing red and blue states is the presidential election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. This is often brought up because it is an excellent display of how varied the political culture in America is and what kind of impact that can have on our nation. Although the 2000 election is a good example, any election could work to show the divide in our country. If you looked at an electoral map for any past election, the divisions between red and blue states would still be very clear. There will never be a year when the map is entirely blue or entirely red. This means that our political culture is conflictual.. Although there is no physical violence between red and blue states, there is still tension and disagreements. As long as there are red and states, there will always be conflict in their ideas and expectations of the government. A consensual political culture in America is more of a picture perfect idea than it is a reality in our country.