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If enough beliefs or attitudes are shattered by an event, such as an economic catastrophe or a threat to personal safety, ideology shifts may affect the way we vote. During the 1920s, the Republican Party controlled the House of Representatives and the Senate, sometimes by wide margins.
United States Senate. 2015. “Party Division in the Senate, 1789-Present,”
United States Senate . June 5, 2015. http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/partydiv.htm (February 17, 2016). History, Art&Archives. 2015. “Party Divisions of the House of Representatives: 1789–Present.”
United States House of Representatives . June 5, 2015. http://history.house.gov/Institution/Party-Divisions/Party-Divisions/ (February 17, 2016). After the stock market collapsed and the nation slid into the Great Depression, many citizens abandoned the Republican Party. In 1932, voters overwhelmingly chose Democratic candidates, for both the presidency and Congress. The Democratic Party gained registered members and the Republican Party lost them.
V. O. Key Jr. 1955. “A Theory of Critical Elections.”
Journal of Politics 17 (1): 3–18. Citizens’ beliefs had shifted enough to cause the control of Congress to change from one party to the other, and Democrats continued to hold Congress for several decades. Another sea change occurred in Congress in the 1994 elections when the Republican Party took control of both the House and the Senate for the first time in over forty years.
Today, polling agencies have noticed that citizens’ beliefs have become far more polarized, or widely opposed, over the last decade.
Pew Research Center. 2014. “Political Polarization in the American Public.”
Pew Research Center . June 12, 2014. http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/ (February 17, 2016). To track this polarization, Pew Research conducted a study of Republican and Democratic respondents over a twenty-five-year span. Every few years, Pew would poll respondents, asking them whether they agreed or disagreed with statements. These statements are referred to as “value questions” or “value statements,” because they measure what the respondent values. Examples of statements include “Government regulation of business usually does more harm than good,” “Labor unions are necessary to protect the working person,” and “Society should ensure all have equal opportunity to succeed.” After comparing such answers for twenty-five years, Pew Research found that Republican and Democratic respondents are increasingly answering these questions very differently. This is especially true for questions about the government and politics. In 1987, 58 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of Republicans agreed with the statement that the government controlled too much of our daily lives. In 2012, 47 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of Republicans agreed with the statement. This is an example of polarization, in which members of one party see government from a very different perspective than the members of the other party (
[link] ).
Pew Research Center. 2015. “American Values Survey.”
Pew Research Center . http://www.people-press.org/values-questions/ (February 17, 2016).
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