politics

In the midterm election last week Republicans took the House and won eight seats in the Senate. Their win, however, as Matthew Yglesias puts it, doesn’t simply reflect the “national mood.”  Instead, it was partly a reflection of a shift in the demographics of the voters who turned out. Young voted still lean Democratic, and many more of them stayed home last Tuesday than two years ago.

See also our post on historic trends in voter turnout.

Via Jose Marichal at Thick Culture.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Made in America‘s Claude S. Fischer posted this figure depicting the percent of the voting-age U.S. population who voted in presidential elections, 1824-2008:

The figure shows radical shifts in the percent of the voting-age population that turned up at the polls, putting the recent Obama bump in perspective.  Fischer narrates two of the trends:

Americans streamed to the polls at rapidly growing rates during the antebellum years (the upwardly slanted oval) probably because: competitive two-party politics emerged; barriers to voting such as property requirements were lowered; states added more polling places so rural voters did not have to travel as far; a growing spoils system provided more government goodies for the victors; and the parties made elections entertaining – parades, fiery speech-making, and well-lubricated election days… By the 1880s and ‘90s, voting rates hit about 80 percent.

The downward oval is accounted for, in part, by women.  Women were granted suffrage in  1920 but, as Fischer says it, “…it took a while for women to get into the habit of voting.”  The drop started before this, however, so there’s more to it.  Fischer continues:

One factor was declining party competition; the Republican and Democratic parties retreated to different regions of the country.  In addition, two general sorts of innovations helped discourage voting: changes in rules and changes in incentives…

Native-born, upper-middle-class, largely Protestant Progressives were able, after much struggle, to reform election rules in many places… The new rules narrowed suffrage by, for example, requiring voters to be citizens, to register long before elections, and to pass literacy tests to vote. Other rules eliminated straight party-line voting… and even party identification on ballots, making it more difficult for less-educated voters to know whom to vote for. These moves raised the barriers to voting and helped drive down participation in the North. (In the South, of course, new Jim Crow laws essentially prevented any blacks from voting.)

Progressive reforms also eliminated some of the incentives people had to vote… The arrival of the secret ballot in the late 19th century eliminated the easy opportunity to sell one’s vote…

The institution of civil service employment reduced other financial incentives to vote …many Americans voted in order to get jobs for themselves, their relatives, or their friends. The fewer the positions filled by political appointment, the less the incentive to vote…

…government reforms also made it harder for the parties to raise money… [and t]hat, in turn, reduced the hoopla – the parades, bands, and such – and the free goodies that parties could dispense on election day. By the time women got the vote, a lot of the fun had gone out of voting. Turnout rates fell to about 50 percent.

Read Fischer’s full postfor his thoughts on why Americans do and don’t turnout to vote today.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

In this 9-minute GRIT TV video, Kimberle Crenshaw, a law professor who coined the term “intersectionality,” discusses what’s wrong with a “color-blind” approach to politics:

Via Racialicious.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

How ironic that so many women are telling men to “man up.” Enjoy:

Thanks Dmitriy T.M.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Being a voter in Nevada, I have been inundated with political mailers this season. I have clearly been identified as a Liberated Woman Voter who will respond to arguments that a candidate’s opponent hates women and plans to have us all chained in the kitchen immediately upon taking office. I meant to save some of the images from the mailers for a post about targeting female voters, but I forgot to. Well, not so much forgot as became so overwhelmed with the pile that I threw them away. Apparently I have not been targeted as a voter who cares about environmental concerns and might be horrified by the number of things I’m receiving in the mail, often the identical mailer several times a week.

Luckily, Leigh C. sent us a nice example. Leigh got both of these voter guides in the mail on the same day, both from the exact same group, with the exact same content inside. However, as you’ll notice, one is the default guide, and one is the guide specifically for women. And how do you clearly signal something is for women? With a flower! (Or, as Leigh put it, a “vaginal poppy”):

The mailers I got tended to prominently feature women in business suits, the universal signal for Liberated Career Women, obviously.

Christine O’Donnell, the Republican nominee for Delaware’s senate seat, recently released a campaign commercial that claims that she is you (i.e., Delaware voters) and that, if she were elected she would do exactly what you would do if you went to Congress.

As Jay Smooth points out, the O’Donnell commercial is an excellent example of populist rhetoric.  A populist, as opposed to an elitist, believes in the “…wisdom, or virtues of the common people” (miriam-webster).  When O’Donnell says that she is you, she is saying that she is just a regular person, not a political elite.  Further, she is asserting that regular people are better suited to govern than those elites.  Therefore, we should vote for her because there is nothing special about her that makes her fit for governance… at least nothing special that you don’t share.

Smooth says it better:

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Today Californians vote as to whether to legalize marijuana.  Chris Uggen at Public Criminology explains:

This measure (1) legalizes various marijuana-related activities, (2) allows local governments to regulate these activities, (3) permits local governments to impose and collect marijuana-related fees and taxes, and (4) authorizes various criminal and civil penalties.

There is a chance that the measure will pass; Gallup polls of U.S. opinion show that support for legalization has grown over time:

What will happen if California becomes the first state to legalize marijuana is the stuff of speculation or, more generously, modeling.  Uggen points to the work of scholars employed at the RAND Drug Policy Research Center (Beau Kilmer, Jonathan P. Caulkins, Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Robert J. MacCoun, and Peter H. Reuter).  According to their models:

(1) the pretax retail price of marijuana will substantially decline, likely by more than 80 percent. The price the consumers face will depend heavily on taxes, the structure of the regulatory regime, and how taxes and regulations are enforced;

(2) consumption will increase, but it is unclear how much, because we know neither the shape of the demand curve nor the level of tax evasion (which reduces revenues and prices that consumers face);

(3) tax revenues could be dramatically lower or higher than the $1.4 billion estimate provided by the California Board of Equalization (BOE); for example, uncertainty about the federal response to California legalization can swing estimates in either direction;

(4) previous studies find that the annual costs of enforcing marijuana laws in California range from around $200 million to nearly $1.9 billion; our estimates show that the costs are probably less than $300 million; and

(5) there is considerable uncertainty about the impact of legalizing marijuana in California on public budgets and consumption, with even minor changes in assumptions leading to major differences in outcomes.

In other words, it’s really hard to tell what the consequences of legalizing marijuana will be!  Uggen urges caution.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Latoya Petersen at Racialicious highlighted an interesting campaign ad. Funded by Citizens Against Government Waste, it features a future in which China has succeeded the United States as the world’s super power. It is supposed to frighten the reader by forecasting a world in which China rules America (cue ominous music and satisfied evil chuckling).

What is interesting to me is the assumption that drives the commercial: that the U.S. should be a super power, that it is naturally so (so long as it sticks to its founding principles), and that it would be wrong for China to be more powerful than the U.S.   The idea that self-satisfied Asian people would be in charge adds racist oomph to the threat.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.