American Politics For Dummies

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American Politics For Dummies®

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, www.wiley.com

This edition first published 2014

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex.

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About the Author

Dr Matthew Hill is a Senior Lecturer in American Politics in the School Humanities and Social Science at Liverpool John Moores University. Previous to this he has held lectureships at Anglia Ruskin University, and the School of Advanced Study at the University of London. He has contributed to teaching American politics at several other universities including Cardiff, De Montfort and Birkbeck. Matthew’s research on US Foreign Policy and democracy promotion is published in international journals and as a book. As well as trawling the shelves in dusty libraries and archives, Matthew has interviewed a number of prominent figures for his research, including former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former ambassadors.

Matthew has lived and worked in the US in the past including a stint as an intern at The Carter Center, where he worked for former President Jimmy Carter. He now gets his fix of favourite American foods on annual research trips. At home, he likes to appease the American part of his soul by calling films ‘movies’ and pronouncing tomato to rhyme with potato. He can be heard walking the streets of London recounting famous skits from Saturday Night Live.

Author’s Acknowledgements

So many people have been instrumental in bringing this book into being. The team at Wiley have been wonderful to work with. I’m grateful to Mike Baker, my Commissioning Editor, for his creative thinking and efficiency in getting the ball rolling, and his helpful input at the later stages too. Most importantly, I have felt so lucky to have my editor Traci Cumbay on my side (and on my case!) throughout this project. Traci’s sharp and thorough editing skills are second only to her ability to write funny, morale boosting emails. Numerous times she has reeled me back from the end of my tether and helped me to get this book finished. I would also like to thank Terri Jett for her technical review and Kate O’Leary for turning my scribbles into a Dummies book.

I am grateful to both Liverpool John Moores University and Anglia Ruskin University for their support in allowing me the time to write this book. Alex Miles, my History Head John Moores, took me on in the middle of writing this book.

Finally, I want to thank my partner, Charlotte. For the last six months she’s barely seen me because the laptop has got between us. But when I’ve looked up, I’m delighted to find that she hasn’t gone away, and she sometimes even tolerates a ‘fascinating’ story about the US constitution, or electoral anomalies. I don’t know how I got so lucky.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

Acquisitions Editor: Mike Baker

Project Editor: Traci Cumbay

Copy Editor: Kate O’Leary

Technical Editor: Terri Jett

Art Coordinator: Alicia B. South

Project Coordinator: Melissa Cossell

Project Manager: Steve Edwards

Cover Image: ©Marilyn Nieves/Getty Images

Chapter 1

Witnessing the Birth of America

In This Chapter

arrow Describing the emergence of the new nation

arrow Considering the meaning of democracy

arrow Considering issues in contemporary America

arrow Explaining the emergence of the US on the world stage

The United States isn’t your typical nation; it didn’t emerge from a long process of interactions between a mix of geography and culture, as was the case in Europe. The nation emerged from a fight for liberty – a fight that was based on a new way of dealing with relations between a government and its people. And today, if you look around the globe, you can see how much influence the American concept of government has had. Around half of the nearly 200 countries in the world are democracies, and many of these have emulated the American political system.

This chapter takes you on a sweeping tour of all things American. I identify how America came to be this revered nation by examining its historical and philosophical roots, describe key domestic debates facing the nation today and discuss the role of US involvement on the international stage.

Recounting the Events That Birthed a Nation

The United States came into being when it publicly declared its independence on 4 July 1776. But that was the culmination of a lot of struggle and growth, and the emergence of the 13 colonies that became the first 13 states of the new nation – and a letter that changed politics for generations to come.

Dear George: The Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence was probably the greatest child-seeking-divorce-from-parents-letter ever to have been written, and one of only a few to have been written by a colony to its former ruler. To cap it off, the declaration of love lost was made public on an international scale.

Written and passed by the Continental Congress (see Chapter 2) on 2 July and published on 4 July 1776, the Declaration starts by explaining that any group wishing to separate from a former ruler needs to provide reasons for doing so. The Declaration begins with the classic sentence, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ Of course, the founders’ definition of ‘all men’ really meant White men and not women or other races. Broadening the scope came much later in the life of America, and I discuss part of that struggle in Chapter 14.

The Declaration goes into great length outlining the injuries inflicted by George III, including refusal to pass laws for the common good, restricting justice and economic growth, and the destruction of colonial lives and property by mercenary armies and insurrections. The Declaration then suggests that the colonists have repeatedly pleaded with the British to grant them greater respect but have found their response wanting.

Finally, the colonists declare they are free people by granting themselves absolution ‘from all allegiance to the British Crown’ as a new nation with ‘full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.’

The backstory: Opposing colonial power

remember.eps The Declaration arose from an environment of increasing discontent. From the mid-1700s, colonists were frustrated with the British controlling their destiny. Combined with steady population growth – 2 million people by the early 1760s – was a growing economy and a desire among colonists for further territorial expansion. However, colonists were constrained by a series of British Acts, taxes and royal proclamations that fuelled increasing resentment of colonial rule.

The year 1763 was important in signalling the beginning of the end for British colonial America. The Seven Year War (1756–1763) pitting European powers against each other was echoed in North America as the French and Indian War. It was a battle between the French and the British for colonial domination of the region, and the British won. With the defeat of the French, the colonists believed they could thus expand the territory under their control. However, fearful of Native American rebellion in response to such expansionism, in 1763 King George III issued a royal proclamation forbidding it. Siding with the Native Americans, George III declared that colonists on these lands would have to be removed and, adding to the perceived insult, they would have to help pay for the building of military outposts to protect the border they didn’t want.

In the next two years relations between the British colonial powers and the colonists were further inflamed when a series of Acts sought more revenue from the colonies and greater control over their affairs. In 1765, for example, the Stamp Act – used to finance troops based in the colonies – was the first direct tax applied to the colonists. They responded by submitting petitions and boycotting British goods. They also established groups such as the Sons of Liberty, which rebelled against colonial power. Their argument was that without representation in Parliament taxation should not be applied.

By 1767 further Acts had asserted British control over the colonies, and a growing number of colonists were refusing to pay taxes. At one protest against taxes in 1770, British troops killed five people. Referred to as the Boston Massacre, this event became the beacon of resistance against British control. Simultaneously, London relented and repealed all Acts except taxing tea. In December1773, in an incident known as the Boston Tea Party, a group of men dressed as Native Americans raided the East India Company ships docked in Boston and dumped their cargo of tea into the harbour.

Parliament then introduced the Intolerable Acts, severely restricting the powers of the Massachusetts government by placing it under Crown control. In response, the colonists organised themselves and held the First Continental Congress, in Philadelphia in 1774. Twelve of the thirteen colonies sent delegates (Georgia declined), and although disagreements occurred about whether to seek a resolution with Britain or to request legislative parity or separation, they were united in their opposition to Britain’s increasing dominance. The Congress issued a declaration on how it wanted Britain to respond to its grievances, and declared it would meet again the following year if the demands weren’t met. Before it met again, however, British troops had attempted to seize patriot weapons and the revolution began.

The Second Continental Congress met in 1775, organised the Continental Army and established George Washington as its commander. A year later, on 4 July, the Congress published the Declaration of Independence, assumed the functions of government and began appointing ambassadors, signing treaties, raising an army, seeking loans from European lenders and issuing money. The battle of Yorktown in October 1782 signalled the end of the war, with General Washington accepting the surrender of the British general, Cornwallis.

In February 1793 the British declared an end to hostilities and in September signed the Treaty of Paris recognising the United States of America as a new nation. The child was officially divorced from its parents.

How to Be a Democracy: The Manual

Creating a new state brought new issues to be addressed, including what the state would look like, how it would respond to the fear of tyrannical rule, and what type of relationship would be formed between government and the people.

Founding forethoughts

In any new game, the rules of play have to be worked out. And new games don’t appear in isolation from the experiences of the people developing them; they’re driven by those people and experiences. In the case of democracy, the new game developers were also known as the founding fathers and were responding to the grievances of the colonists in the 13 colonies. In the wake of their squabbles with King George III, they feared a tyrannical and absolutist leader who dictated terms and did not listen to the needs or wants of the people. Thus, they drew on Enlightenment political philosophy, otherwise known as liberalism, which was being discussed at the time in Europe.

Liberalism proposed a radical reinterpretation of the relationship between the people and those who governed. It suggested that, rather than the ruler having sovereignty and their subjects having to obey them, the people were sovereign and the government was there to work on their behalf. (Chapter 3 tells you more about liberalism.)

Key to ensuring that the government was working in the interests of the people was limiting the powers of the government. The new nation would enshrine individual rights in a Constitution in order to ensure that the government was unable to expand its powers.

Employing a republican state and thwarting tyranny

remember.eps First and foremost, the founders wanted to establish a state that responded to the needs of the people. They sought to do this by establishing a political system that enabled the people to have their voices represented through elected officials, while also diluting the concentration of power into a federal system that separated powers of government into three branches:

  • Executive, which enforces the law of the land and is led by the president (see Chapter 4)
  • Legislature, which makes the law (see Chapter 5)
  • Judiciary, which enforces the law (see Chapter 7)

Although they liked the idea of democratic government, the founders were also cautious of democracy, associating it with mob rule enabling the majority to dominate all others. In order to avoid this situation, they introduced rights that protected individuals and states.

By dividing the powers of the central government into the legislature, executive and judiciary, the Constitution encouraged struggles between the three branches. In addition to dividing the duties of government into separate branches, the Constitution also details the powers to check and balance the other two branches. Chapter 2 tells you more about these checks and balances.

The Constitution also divided powers between the central (federal) government and the states:

  • The federal government is responsible for safeguarding civil society from external and internal threats, and for protecting people’s individual rights.
  • Each state government is independent and has its own responsibilities for ensuring that the individuals within its constituency are protected.

Government was divided this way in part as a legacy of the colonial states exercising their own authority in their own areas, and partly because it would ensure that these two levels would compete with each other and ensure that power wasn’t concentrated in one area. Thus if one of these two layers of government were to infringe people’s rights in some way, those people could then turn to the other layer to address their concerns.

The rights protecting the individual and individual states from the tyranny of the majority were enshrined in the first 10 amendments to the Constitution – collectively termed the Bill of Rights. Chapter 2 covers the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in detail.

Defining ‘we’ the people

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the phrase ‘we the people’ used in the Declaration of Independence covered every adult living in the country. But the situation wasn’t that simple. Defining who the people are – in other words, who has the rights afforded by the US Constitution – depends on individual and cultural beliefs. The social and political upheavals in US history have had a dramatic impact on who the predominant US culture designates as a member of the ‘we’ and not the ‘others’ category.

Race and ethnicity have had a huge impact on the institutional and social development of the American political, economic and cultural system. It’s not just a story about how the political system saw the need for change in what constituted ‘the people’; it’s also about the narratives of the people and how they fought and struggled for equal access and recognition.

Through the 1770s onwards ‘the people’ were overwhelmingly White men and women and just a few freed slaves and ‘civilised’ Native Americans. In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War from 1865 onwards and into the Restoration Era, enslaved people were freed, and the definition changed. However, it wasn’t until the 1960s that significant advances in terms of political and social equality between races were made. There was a recognition during this period, among increasing numbers of Americans, as well as the government, that the dominance of the White Anglo Saxon Protestant (WASP) culture since the founding of the nation was in need of an overhaul to better reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of the country in the political, cultural and economic realms. This drive for change was particularly focused on the status of African Americans, although the benefits were ultimately felt by all minority groups. The racial and ethnic path of America changed course. Chapter 14 tells you more about race and multiculturalism.

American society has taken 200 years plus to get to where it is today, and by no means has it arrived at destination equality yet. The founders created a political system that can accommodate change and new members, and this unique fight for the rights of the individual to be protected from the tyranny of the majority has stood the country in good stead.

Issues Facing Modern America

The struggles inherent in US domestic policy suggest two things about American society: a narrative of positivity and a belief in change but also a reality that fundamental divisions remain. These struggles, to varying degrees, reflect divisions existing in American society:

  • Questions of individual liberty
  • Interpretations of the Constitution
  • The balance between state rights and federal rights
  • The role the federal government should play in regulating the lives of Americans

And while these divisions haven’t led to another openly violent and large-scale civil war (see Chapter 14 on that conflict), they do, nonetheless, manifest themselves in a culture war. Chapter 15 explores in detail the current issues dividing US society, from gun control to abortion, the power of central government to the death penalty.

politicalspin.eps Key debates in American society collectively reflect conflicting visions of America’s future. Such visions are dependent on differing interpretations of moral authority and gravitate around the concepts of conservatism and progressivism:

  • From the conservative view of the world, morality is definable, absolute and unchanging. Irrespective of the era in which a person lives they need to obey the same moral code. While conservatives can be secular, their moral code is typically based on religious texts.
  • From the progressive perspective, morality is defined by a person’s experiences and not some external and absolute force. It is a product of the changing society in which the person lives.

A lot of debate happens in the United States around issues that illustrate and deepen those conflicting takes on right and wrong. These, too, are covered in Chapter 15.

America on the World Stage

The United States of America was borne from an idea, a revolutionary idea. And it marks the US as an exceptional and special state. It has forever proclaimed its unique sense of mission and suggested it is a beacon of freedom and righteousness for the world to admire and follow (see Chapter 17 for more details). As a result, America has felt a duty to promote its political system around the world.

Currently, the US remains the only superpower in the world. It still has the capacity to dominate, shape and determine the future course of world history in a way that no other state can match. However, its period of unipolar dominance is coming to an end. China’s rise as an economic and military power, India’s growing economic strength and Russia’s increasing confidence on the world stage are challenging America’s status as the dominant hegemon. Whether a rebalancing of international relations will result remains to be seen, but it is certainly food for thought for policy-makers in Washington, DC. Chapter 18 covers US relations with various other nations.