26 Sep Americans are a very diverse people. Describe in detail and comment on at least two dimensions of this diversity discussed in the Magleby text.?’ MUST BE 8 SENTENCES USE THE ATTAC

NOTES FROM VIDEO LECTURE

·

· Well, hello again, everybody. We'll be back at it. And today I'm going to be talking about the subject matter and module four, which, for lack of a better term, the American political landscape, American political culture. And i'm going to say pretty close to the maglev text in chapter four

· 00:19in your text. So this is obviously the last chapter in unit one. And when you're finished with this chapter and keep an eye out for the unit, one exam, check calendar and canvas, and and and start preparing for it.

· 00:34And I just hope you've been taking really good notes during the lectures, taking really good notes when you're reading, because when you get to the essays it's a short essays on the Minute Exam. That'll all pay off. Now let me see if I can find my Powerpoint slide into a share screen

· 00:50and get it going. We will get started here.

· 00:58The American political landscape boy.

· 01:01What a country!

· 01:03Just remember that our nation is almost three thousand miles across

· 01:08one thousand five hundred to two thousand miles north to South Don't. Forget we have Alaska and Hawaii, and other territories as well, like Puerto Rico.

· 01:17So we're enormous in terms of our geographical size. We're almost a full continent. We're on, you know, keep us in Canada, and that's North America.

· 01:25So that's where we're mass. If obviously we face two different oceans, the Pacific

· 01:31and the Atlantic, and I guess I should include the Arctic Ocean, too, because Alaska borders the Arctic Ocean so three different oceans.

· 01:40You see you there a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, which goes across the San Francisco Bay on the Pacific side.

· 01:47I don't forget you have the famous Brooklyn Bridge over in New York on the East Side. So the east side of our country there are iconic, iconic, architectural land. Ah! Points of reference all across this nation.

· 02:02It's just a very amazing place. We have three hundred and about three hundred and thirty million people today in in America, which makes it one of the most populous nations on earth.

· 02:12It's an increasingly diverse Ah! Country and ethnic firms racial terms, that ah religious terms! You name it nation of origin. You name it, we're, we're becoming more and more diverse. So we're going to

· 02:25dig into all of that in today's lecture.

· 02:29So let's talk about geography and natural resources. We are a very large country and a relatively isolated country. We do have countries that border us to the north as Canada and Canada's. Very few people.

· 02:43There are more people living in Los Angeles County than there are in the entire country of Canada.

· 02:48So it's a it's a slowly populated country, and in a very cold climate. So Canada is a is a historic friend of the United States. It's not considered to be a threat to us, so we've been very lucky to have them as a neighbor, and of course, Mexico to the south of our border.

· 03:05Except for the Mexican-american war, back in the middle of the nineteenth century. It's also been a friend of power as well, and not not considered a threat to us militarily. So we're very blessed to have the oceans, the Pacific and Atlantic kind of protecting us

·

Unknown Speaker

03:20on the East and the West and the North and the South, we have had

·

Eugene Goss

03:24blessings of not having for dangerous enemies on our borders.

· 03:31Um Manifest destiny is also an idea that you should probably be aware of It's a historical idea. It came up in the nineteenth century leaders in America on the East coast started to justify a Western expansion all the way to California and the Soviet coast, and they said, Well, this is our destiny. We Americans are destined to

· 03:51take control of that from that land, and I believe it was God's mission. That's for you to decide um. And so they felt it was the destiny of America to rule that land between the oceans, and to do something special in the history of the world,

· 04:06so that's manifest destiny. That's one of the reasons that we've developed all the way to the pacific

· 04:12natural resources. Well, there's tons of natural resources. One of the things we have that many countries don't have is a huge number amount of arable land with arable landme. It means you can farm it. It's fertile, and it's it's land that can be turned into croc land for farms and food production.

· 04:31So for a very long time the United States has led the world in food production. We feed ourselves, and we feed a lot of the rest of the world with our farming.

· 04:40We also have lots of fresh water that other countries Don't have. Remember, we're bordering the Great Lakes to the north. We have all sorts of in the Mississippi River and Missouri River and the Columbia River,

· 04:52the Sacramento River, and many others, and we are, of course, vast lakes and underground aquifers. So America is blessed with a lot of fresh water we've blessed with huge stands of timber forests to the north and to the east and the north

· 05:08a huge amounts of timber which provide the raw materials for building, building homes and many other things, paper and other things, minerals. This land has been blessed with all sorts of minerals, not not the least of which

· 05:22it's coal for energy, but no less than a but but obviously silver and gold and

· 05:28and iron, and many other things that have become useful, as we have manufactured those minerals in the manufacturing process to build our society in tangible in tangible form.

· 05:41We're all in natural gas if we deregulated the oil and natural gas industry in America, which but if we did, we would have by and far and away the largest oil and gas production in the world.

·

Unknown Speaker

05:58But even with it heavily regulated, we still we still produce a huge amount of oil and natural gas, because it's just there. Naturally,

·

Eugene Goss

06:06our lands, and finally, we're also blessed with great fisheries along the Atlantic coast, particularly the North Atlantic coast, off the coast of Maine,

· 06:16Massachusetts, and then, of course, the Pacific coast, particularly the northern Pacific coast, going all the way from Oregon and Washington all the way up to Alaska.

· 06:25So obviously we have a lot of natural resources and have had a lot of natural resources historically. Excuse me,

· 06:36wet my whistle now and then. I'm going to lose my voice

· 06:40well into you. Take a look at American kind of figure out. Well, what are the various differences in terms of geography? Remember

· 06:47your text talks about the Sun Belt, the Sinbell are all those country states in the country that

· 06:53that forum where there's warmer climate most of the year, and that's really from Central California all the way down, and maybe capturing southern Nevada, most of Arizona, much of New Mexico, Texas, and all the way through the south around Louisiana,

· 07:11a Georgia, Alabama of South Carolina, and Florida. All those States are in the sundown because they get a lot of sun. They're much warmer than the rest of the country,

· 07:19and then, of course, above the Sun Belt is the frostbelt. That'll be any of the kind of states above that where you get frost in the morning early in the fall, and you can get speed, and you can get snow in the air. See the sun belt. You have a frost belt, and of course California is mostly in the sun.

· 07:36The Bible belt is kind of a to describe most of the States in the Midwest and South Southern, Midwest and South, the

· 07:44where the Protestant faith,

· 07:48evangelical Protestant faith is a particularly Baptist.

· 07:52The nomination is very common and very strong, and so sometimes it's called the Bible, because so many people have that affiliation

· 08:02and don't forget the rust belt. The rust belt is back there in the Midwest Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, where we used to have a great manufacturing of the Twentieth century. The car industry, the steel industry.

· 08:14Many of those industries have dried up and gone offshore to other countries. And so those whole factors are sitting there rusting, and sometimes we call that area the upper midwest area, the Russell

· 08:27State local identity. Or remember, understand this, that we all have a proud of the States we live in, and we all have a sense of pride in our local identities as well. We all have what's called provincial, as most Americans

· 08:41think of themselves as Americans, of course, but we also think of ourselves provincially, as you know, people from Long Beach or in California, people from the West Coast people from the Pacific coast. Many different ways that people in various locations in America

· 08:56identify themselves

· 08:58urban and rural populations there. There's a very significant difference in the urban areas. You tend to see more of ethnic minorities, more racial minorities,

· 09:06and in the rural and suburban areas you'll tend to see more white people proportionally.

· 09:14Um, that's that's That's a product of many things, but particularly something protects called white flight back in the sixty, S. And seventy S. As more and more minorities were into major cities like Chicago and in core areas of La and nor any of the white people that were living there moved down into the suburbs,

· 09:33mainly because they were moving into the middle class in terms of income, and they were moving out as the minority population moving in. But some social scientists had come in, and there was some racism going on there, and i'm sure that that's part of part of that partly affected.

· 09:50But that's where we're situated. Today we see the suburbs and small towns and rural areas are far, far greater white populations than do the core areas of the inner cities of.

· 10:02And these demographic changes should tell you Every ten years we do a census. And so this is going to going back to the last census of two thousand and ten. You can see those two blue States, Texas and Florida. They're the States that picked up the most representation in Congress. Why, as they got the most increase in population previous ten years.

· 10:22By the way, we just did a two thousand and twenty census, and guess what Texas and Florida got more seats and bombers, because they continue to grow faster than all the other states in the country.

· 10:32It's actually a good thing if you're a Republican, because those are parties that those States are increasingly Republican.

· 10:39They are a big impact on the electoral college and our selection for the President, and of course, the representatives there.

· 10:46The more there are the more Republican representation you get in the House of Representatives which helps Republicans try to control Congress,

· 11:03Pink States. They are in their states that it's historically been democratic for the last thirty years, and you can see they're losing population to the south of the Sunbell states.

· 11:14You must see only one State there, or the state of organs. The only state that actually picked up a seat in two thousand and twelve that actually gained a little bit of population in what we call the frostbelt is pretty much from the north of California all the way north.

· 11:30So a good thing to remember is the northeast is losing population most of the rest of the country. It's kind of just holding its Brown

· 11:38and Texas and Florida, particularly our gaining population at the expense of the rest of the country.

· 11:46You know. There was a brief discussion in your text about it. This was a number of years ago, but it points out that there's a kind of a different mindset, you know. You know the West into the rural areas of the West. You know the forest, raising land with lots of cowboys and bloggers

· 12:02ranchers. Um. The rural West is a decidedly suspicious view of Federal power, United States Government much more so than urban and suburban areas. Why? Because they use Federal lands on lands owned by the Federal Government blm lands, particularly to graze their cattle or lob timber,

· 12:22and they have historically had a lot of influence and control over those lands

· 12:27when the Us. Government or the States try to assert their prerogative, maybe try to limit their grazing or limit how much lumber they can take. Well, they take an umbridge, and they actually had a Mini revolt here a few years ago, and took control of the Federal facility in Eastern Oregon for several weeks. Finally it was picking their roles taken down by marshals.

· 12:46But it's an interesting thing that most of the people who are tried for Federal crimes for having taken over a Federal building in a Federal courtroom or an organ,

· 12:56were found not guilty by a jury that was very sympathetic to them. So it's kind of interesting, and this is true. Across the West and the rural areas about rocky mounds, areas, rural areas of California, Arizona, Oregon, and Washington

· 13:11do have an attitude which is quite different than what you'll see in herment areas.

· 13:17Race. And Evan, I say, Well, let's use the terms that your text, the definitions your text uses.

· 13:23Excuse me, Race refers to physical characteristics that you can measure. You can see right physical things. You can observe.

· 13:31Ethnicity refers to national origin, religion, and language.

· 13:36There's a lack of agreement on whether a race is a biological distinction or a social distinction like ethnicity. I'm not coming.

· 13:43Take a position on that, because I agree. I think it's a open question.

· 13:50Hispanics Latinos, or some Now, now some academics, referring to them as lab

· 13:55next are increasing in their political importance, because they're the second largest ethnic group in America. There is great diversity in their ranks. They have become very politically important in California, Texas, Florida, and New York.

· 14:08In California and New York

· 14:11they are. They tend to be Hispanics tend to be a more liberal New York, more Ah! Higher percentage of Portuguese, California, higher percentage of Mexican Americans. They tend to be more liberal in Florida. Cuban Americans tend to be more conservative, and they didn't have an influence on Florida Politics from that perspective.

· 14:30And in Texas Mexican Americans are more conservative than they are in California,

· 14:37and, for instance, the majority of them voted for George W. Bush, for Governor in State of California. So our State of Texas, so it's a it's a diverse group. The Latino outcomes can can trace its heritage back from many different parts

· 14:53of Central America, South America, the

· 14:57the Caribbean, and of Course Mexico,

· 15:02African-americans, the one immigrant group that did not come here for the most part voluntarily they were. They were literally brought here in slay and chains as slaves, and even after slavery's abolished African Americans continued to live predominantly in the South or in urban areas outside of the South

· 15:19African-americans live in all fifty states, but typically they live in urban areas and not in the suburban and rural areas.

· 15:30And there are many different reasons for that. They I think your text touches on if you want to go back and take a look at that. But you should understand this about African Americans. They're highly concentrated as the population in the Southern States, for instance, the State of Louisiana,

· 15:46the African-american population I think Last time I checked it's thirty six that's better than a bird. Of Louisiana is black. If you look at a nationwide, the African-american population is only about eleven percent.

· 15:59So the Southern States are far more have far greater concentrations of African American

· 16:05citizens than do States outside of the South. That's a That's a for important salient point, because that means in those States. They have more influence in the outcome of the political contests. In those States,

· 16:19Asian-americans are another very diverse group hailing from different countries and speaking different languages, Korean, Americans and Pacific islanders, Asian civic islanders,

· 16:30Japanese, Americans, Taiwanese, Chinese, Americans, Filipinos, and there are many more ties, Cambodians.

· 16:40It's a very diverse group from they. They're a very different country, and many are fairly recent immigrants who still speak of second language, and they're different languages. Thai is very different from the Cambodian, which is very different Japanese, which is very different than a Chinese.

· 16:54We have had a very significant influx of Asian immigration in California in the last twenty years right here in the Los Angeles area,

· 17:03and if you're maybe wanting to know even more that there's a huge population of Chinese and Taiwanese Americans of recent immigration,

· 17:11who moved into the San Gabriel Valley, which is not too far from where I live in Sierra Andre

· 17:16Um. But all these groups are obviously interplaying with one another in our political system and our political system, that they all have different ways of looking at things, at different subcultures

· 17:27and different histories in the country, and they're all one of the challenges of American politics to make this all work again, make sure that everyone meshes, and then we can move forward

· 17:39a productive way as a nation, instead of being divided based on our differences.

· 17:44Let's not forget native Americans, the folks who are here before everybody else. Hence we call them native Americans.

· 17:50They they're a very tiny percentage of the population only about zero point two, not even a full percentage point of the Us. Population today.

· 17:58Most live on reservations, and I have to say that it's a sad thing to say that most Indian reservations or native American reservation

· 18:08are places that are very poor, you know, have a lot of problems, a lot of social problems. There are many. There are plenty of exceptions. There. There are some exceptions around the West coast, where American tribes have done a very good job developing their land in agriculture or timber, or in gambling,

· 18:27but as a general statement, native Americans are a very poor population relative to the average American,

· 18:35and they are, By the way, there's a special ah bureaucracy in the Federal Government that's set up just to administer for the Canadian Americans. It's called the Bureau of Indian Era of Indian Administration

· 18:50Bia, and that they have the responsibility of making sure that

· 18:55on the reservations are able to get the basic things they need, so they can develop themselves and move on with their life

· 19:04changing racial compositions. If you go back to one thousand nine hundred and fifty, you can see that ninety percent of about ninety percent of America was white of some type. Remember, there's a lot of diversity in that white category, too.

· 19:16Today we have to even we

· 19:19a substantial number of Hispanics when asked and surveyed to identify themselves as white. That's Why, now, the sir, Us. Census has created a separate category non-hispanic white.

· 19:30Ah! To try and differentiate between those people who are, who who are Hispanic, who consider themselves to be white, and who those who are white or not. Hispanic is kind of silly in my point of view. But it it is what it is

· 19:45you can see today in twenty up to two thousand and fifty. Only about seventy percent of the country will be white,

· 19:52and so you can see a huge number of change in the American population in that short, very short period of time.

· 19:58Um. Obviously the biggest changes in the Hispanic category. You can see that they are in the. They have projected to be almost thirty percent of the Us. Population

· 20:07in two thousand and fifty that is, owing primarily to immigration, both legal annually the

· 20:14and on the subject of race. I was like to point out that I I live through. And

· 20:19witness the first African-american President of American history, who was elected, I might add, by a non by a majority of Americans, which was not African-american. The African-american vote went for Obama, but that's only about ten percent of the vote. So he had to have a lot of folks a lot of white folks and Hispanic folks to Asian votes

· 20:39to getting into the Presidency. So I think that's a Testament to how far America has come in terms of our ideas about race, the idea of tolerance, and our sense of what is right and what is fair. And of course he was elected twice. So We're quite, quite a Testament to one hundred and fifty

· 20:56to the man himself, but obviously to the changing attitudes in America the

· 21:01that you got to live through. You've all lived through witnesses as well.

· 21:04Don't forget we haven't had our first. He he appointed our first Hispanic Supreme Court, Justice Justice Sonia Soda Mayor

· 21:14also that's also a very path-breaking change in Government demographics. I might add

· 21:23George W. Bush did try to appoint a Mexican-american attorney to the us Supreme Court back. I think it was about two thousand and four,

· 21:32but the Democratic party Bush was a Republican from Texas, and so it's his appointment. It's Hispanic.

· 21:40The Democratic party controlled the Senate, and they they they! They turned that that nomination down because they thought the man was too conservative. So you could have had a

· 21:53about ten years earlier than Southern Mayor, but, as it turns out, she is our first, and she's a democrat, obviously

· 22:02religion globally. If you go around the world in the history of the world or the world today, you'll find that religious differences are often the source of violence, and wars. Jews and Muslims

· 22:13obviously have been in each Other's throats for a long time. Ah! The wars between Muslims, between Sunni, Muslims and Shia Muslims middle wars between the the conflict between in in India, between the Muslims and the Hindus, the Sikhs,

· 22:30the Christians you name it. Religion is oftentimes a source of conflict. The

· 22:36America has enjoyed relative peace and toleration among its religious groups. We get conflict from time to time. We

· 22:43we haven't had those religious wars. We've had a kind of a of relative stability and peace on our religious groups. And that's largely because of our religious freedom. We're probably the most free nation on earth in terms of practicing religion, tolerating each other's religions, and that's built right into the Constitution,

· 23:01that religious liberty is built right into the Constitution. The first clause of the first, and then it says Congressman, establish an official church, so there is no official church which opens up the possibility of anybody wanting to practice their religion without being told. Hey, that's not good. We have to practice the government's religion. We don't

·

Unknown Speaker

23:20you have that

·

Eugene Goss

23:21we also. We know, though, that religion is an important part of how people look at the world.

· 23:28And so when you are looking at political candidates or people, you know, or looking at political candidates, oftentimes knowing what the political candidate's religion is, gives you a a few cues about where they may be on certain political issues.

· 23:42So we try to act like religions not involved in politics, at least overtly. It isn't Certainly our governments,

· 23:49you know Constitution prohibits any religious tests, so you cannot be asked what your religion is to be able to run for office that is forbidden. But we do know that religion matters to people. Most people are religious, and we do know that

· 24:04the religion of political candidates can can be very important to people

· 24:10you're looking at how religion impacts people in America Politically, obviously fundamentalists or evangelical Christians.

· 24:17They're probably a single, most influential Ah, ah! Religious group in the country! But in political terms they're overwhelmingly Republican, and they they form a very key group in the Republican Party coalition, and there are some who are not Republican, but that is the and it's certainly the tendency there.

· 24:37But America is really diverse. If you. I'll show you a slide that's coming up next. We'll show you how diverse we are. Protestants of different denominations dominate America, but certainly there's plenty of us plenty more religion to see

· 24:51the larger trend I want you to be aware of, though, is a trend towards Secularism.

· 24:57To be secular is not to be atheist. It just means you're non-religious, you mean you may call yourself a Christian or a hindu or a Muslim, but if you're not practicing the faith on a regular basis. We call you secular,

· 25:08and we know that there's a trend towards Secularism in America. Each year, and more and more people get more and more secular, and I might add that the generated millennial Z Generation Z. Is the most secular generation we've ever had.

· 25:23Well, they will. Well, your generation turnaround become more religious as you get older. Maybe that's the typical pattern, but maybe not.

· 25:31And this this is a nice graph of where we're at right Now you can see that we're the big red part of that graph. About forty percent of America is one denomination or another of Protestantism,

· 25:42the largest, single, the largest single denomination are Catholics, about twenty, one percent of the population.

· 25:51And then, of course, you can see various other versions of Christianity, of witness Mormons. Others.

· 25:59We have the historically black churches, which are kind of considered demographically as a separate enterprise, although they've shared much in common with Evangel Protestants

· 26:09to be added all up, and there's a majority of Americans that consider themselves to be Christian. Probably I think it's about

· 26:17well better than seventy percent of American considers themselves to be Persian of some time,

· 26:22which is down. Actually, it used to be higher than that just thirty years ago.

· 26:27As American becomes more secular, it intends to become less Christian, and as we get more immigration from places like India and Asia,

· 26:35we're getting more

· 26:37Hindus and Muslims and Buddhists as well,

· 26:41so religious affiliation is changing in America. Like so many other things, changing

· 26:49tech stocks about the importance of gender, our political system, both in terms of voting and participation. About fifty years after gaining the right to vote, women voted at lower rates than men.

· 27:00But now, over the last forty years women have been voting at higher rates than them, and we have more women involved in the political system running for political office, holding political office. We have a woman in the Vice President's job right now in the United States, which is a first.

· 27:15So women are done quite well in the last three decades in terms of trying to catch up. In some ways they've surpassed men who actually get more women voting in a Presidential campaign every four years than men.

· 27:27There is a gender gap in risen to. You know, representation of women in general tend to vote more democratic than men do, then tend to vote more Republican than women do.

· 27:39Single women in particular tend to be more likely to be democratic.

· 27:43Married women are almost fifty over fifty, almost leaning a little bit to the Republicans, but but single women are tend to be very much much or in towards the Democratic party,

· 27:54and that's an interesting thing, because

· 27:56young single women are particularly more we in towards the Democratic party. We call that the gender gap between two parties. The gender gap favors the Democrats when it comes to women,