1. American Political Culture
Why didn’t people shoot George W. Bush?
Why do we pay taxes?
Why don’t we take to the streets to protest Wall Street?

2. Definition of Political Culture
a set of norms, beliefs, traditions, and values oriented toward the political system that are for the most part shared by the society and are relatively unique to a political system

3. The American Political Culture

4. American Political Culture
Is there an American political culture?
Has it disappeared?
How does it affect public policy?

5. Tenets of Classical Liberalism
Individual have natural rights
Individuals are equal under the law
Government should be limited
Government's #1 purpose is to serve individuals

7. Declaration of Independence
All men are created equal
Endowed with certain inalienable rights, life liberty pursuit of happiness
Government derives “their just powers from the consent of the governed “

8. Do you believe in Liberty?

9. Liberty
The belief that individuals should be free to act and think as they choose, provided they do not infringe unreasonably on the freedom and well being of others.

10. Individual Responsibility
A commitment to personal responsibility, self sufficiency, and material accumulation
Hard work pays off

13. It is the responsibility of the state to take care of poor people who can’t take care of themselves.
#s are the percent agreeing

14. People like me and my family have a good chance of improving our standard of living.
#s are percent agreeing

15. Government should reduce income inequality.
Government should provide all Americans with a guaranteed income.
Luck is more important than hard work in getting ahead.
What would those making less than $12k think?

16. Values are shared by least and most fortunate

17. Do you believe in Equality?

18. Equality
Americans have a strong commitment to legal, social and political equality.
Not equality of outcomes or economic equality
Public Support for Affirmative Action
Equality more of a “contested” concept

21. Clinton/Obama Health Care Plan
large government operation
remove control from the market
restrict the choices of individuals
Promote equality of outcomes

22. “a government takeover of your life “
“automatically enrolled in a government run health alliance”
Future of Freedom Foundation

25. Why America hates Socialism

26. Values Shape Policy Outcomes
Policies are suspect if they conflict with dominant political culture.
large government operation
remove control from the market
restrict the choices of individuals
Promote equality of outcomes
Universal health care; living wage policies;

29. Are we really rugged individualists?
Large majorities favor
Government regulation of Wall Street
Protecting the environment
Building infrastructure
Safety net

30. Public Support for Greater Government Role in Health Care Industry

31. Are we really rugged individualists?

32. Tocqueville, Democracy in America

33. Tocqueville Vision Frontier and widespread property ownership
Life characterized by atomistic social freedom
Do not need strong state or class movement to create upward mobility
New world creates faith in individualism

34. Traditional Explanations
Louis Hartz, The Liberal Consensus
no feudal aristocracy—no landed aristocracy to provide a conservative view
minimal taxes
few legal restraints
frontier provides opportunities—easy for ambitious individuals to succeed
nation of small independent farmers

35. Is the American polity characterized by hegemonic liberal democratic values?
All men are created equal
Endowed with certain inalienable rights, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness
Government derives “their just powers from the consent of the governed “

36. “All men are created equal.”

37. “Multiple Traditions” Critique
“Americans share a common culture, but one more complexly and multiply constituted than is usually acknowledged.”

38. “Multiple Traditions” Critique
Rogers Smith -->
American political culture is the “complex patterns of apparently inconsistent combinations of traditions, accompanied by recurring conflicts.”
Complex Mix of liberal and ascriptive forms of Americanism at the same time

39. Smith- Multiple Traditions (cont)
"fail[s] to give due weight to inegalitarian ideologies and conditions that have shaped the participants and the substance of American politics just as deeply" as liberalism has 
At the republic’s founding, the “comparative moral, material, and political egalitarianism that prevailed among moderately propertied white men was surrounded by an array of other fixed, ascriptive systems of unequal status, all largely unchallenged by the American revolutionaries (549).
for “at least two-thirds of American history, the majority of the domestic adult population was ineligible for full American citizenship solely because of their race, original nationality, or gender”
Reconstruction period- example of liberal and ascriptive traditions

40. Civil War and Reconstruction
Slavery abolished
All persons born in US deemed citizens, regardless or race, creed, or gender
None could be denied voting rights on racial grounds
BUT,

41. Darwinism and Spencerism
“Intellectual and political elites develop the most elaborate theories of racial and gender hierarchy in US history and embody them in staggering array of laws governing naturalization, immigration, deportation, voting rights, electoral institutions. ”

42. Intellectual Credibility – Racial Hierarchies
“black, brown, and red races … (had) a peculiar mental temperament which has become hereditary. Leaving them constitutionally recreant to the cues of civilization ” 1895
Daniel Brinton, President, American Association for the Advancement of Science

43. CA Senator, John MIller
40 centuries of Chinese life had “ground into” the Chinese race characteristics that made them unbeatable competitors against the free white man. They were “automatic engines of flesh and blood” far below the Anglo-Saxon- such that immigration of Chinese laborers must be banned.

44. Chinese Exclusion Act

45. Senator Lodge’s Literacy Test
“Research shows it will exclude the Italians, Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Greeks, and Asiatics,… thereby preserving “the quality of our race and citizenship.”

46. Multiple Traditions – still true?

52. THERE WILL BE NOTHING ON WATTENBERG AND GINGRICH ON THE FALL 2011 MIDTERM. 

53. How many immigrants are in the United States today?

57. "Welcome to All!“, Puck April 28, 1880
Caption: "Welcome to All!" Source: Puck Date: April 28, 1880 Artist: J. Keppler This cartoon reflects the welcome extended to immigrants of the 1880s and the concept of America as a land of refuge. The sign to the left of Uncle Sam reads: "Free education, free land, free speech, free ballot, free lunch." The sign near the center of the image reads: "No oppressive taxes, no expensive kings, no compulsory military service, no knouts or dungeons."

58. Are you smart enough to be a US Citizen?
What is the supreme law of the land?
What is the economic system in the United States?
Name one branch or part of the government.*
We elect a U.S. Representative for how many years?
Who vetoes bills?
What are two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy?
Name one American Indian tribe in the United States.