Blog #5

Welcome back to my blog, today we are going to talk about the elections and how candidates use evidence to communicate their point of view.

Voting is a linkage institution because it connects the citizens with the government by encouraging them to participate in the selection of governmental officials. Voters are usually influenced by factors such as political party identification, specific candidates and key issues. The election I chose to write about is Brian Kemp vs. Stacey Abrams. These two candidates are running for governor in the state of Georgia.

Candidate #1
(https://www.kempforgovernor.com/index.php)

The first candidate I will be talking about is Brian Kemp, who is affiliated with the Republican Party.

Some of the main issues this candidate cares about are immigration, specifically criminal aliens as he calls them, and lessen the regulations for small businesses. For the immigration issue, Kemp plans to track and deport "criminal aliens" from jails and prisons. He believes that  "deporting criminal aliens from the Peach State will certainly impact the opioid epidemic, curb sex trafficking, lower crime rates, and protect families from violence, we must stop gang violence and dismantle gang infrastructure to ensure a bright and promising future for hardworking Georgians." Regarding the business regulations, he believes that people should be spending more time working on their businesses than dealing with the government, and that is why regulations should be cut. Additionally, he opposes more gun control in the state of Georgia because he claims that no one can take away his rights.

In this video from Kemp's campaign, he does not argue anything specifically. Instead, he portrays his opponent, Stacey Abrams in a negative way by implying that her views on the same issues are incorrect. However, this article relates to Kemp's point of view as it shows that he, in fact, opposes immigration, gun control and the development of social programs as they raise taxes.


Candidate #2
(https://staceyabrams.com/)

The second candidate I will be talking about is Stacey Abrams, who is affiliated with the Democratic Party. Some of the main issues she cares about are affordable housing, gun safety, and equal rights. She believes that essential to ensure that every family has the freedom and opportunity to thrive and therefore, she wants to find solutions for housing. Regarding gun safety, she thinks that it is time for sensible gun policies that enable responsible ownership and keep firearms away from people who use them to harm other people. Finally, she believes everyone should have the same right no matter their sexual orientation and/ or immigration status in the country. She strongly opposes legislation that demonizes immigrant communities.

This is video from Abrams' campaign. This video pretty much argues about the issues that she cares about and how they need to be fixed. This video relates to her point of view on the issues as she is basically just expressing how she feels about certain issues, it shows her stances on the issues I previously mentioned and some other issues.

Now we are going to focus on two specific issues and compare and contrast how their differences are meaningful.

The first issue we are going to discuss is immigration. Stacey Abrams sees immigration and immigrants in a good way. She does not want to kick out immigrant communities, in fact, she believes immigrants should have the same the rights as everyone. She also believes that families should not be separated on the border. One of the reasons why she holds these beliefs is that she belongs to the Democratic Party, which is liberal. Liberals usually support immigration and promote equality.

On the other hand, Brian Kemp strongly opposes immigration and he believes that they are responsible for most of the issues that Georgia faces. He wants to track and deport undocumented people and believes that this would be the solution to significant issues.  One of the reasons that influence Kemp's stance on this issue is that he Represents the Republican Party, which lies to the conservative side. Conservatives usually oppose immigration. Although there is not a specific reason as to why they oppose it, part of it could be that conservatives do not like change, which is what immigration is doing as it changes the population.


The second issue we are going to discuss is gun control. Stacey Abrams does not oppose the second amendment; however, she believes that there should be certain regulations that prevent people from getting harmed. She believes that it is essential for people to feel safe and that the current state of gun control is not providing security to the people. The fact the Abrahams is a Liberal, influences the stance she has on this issue as Liberals believe that there is a need for laws that make it harder for people to own guns just so the risk of mass shootings.


However, Brian Kemp strongly opposes gun control because he believes it is a right that cannot be changed as it is in the constitution. He thinks that by having guns, security can improve because people can defend themselves than wait for the police to come.  This is a common ideology that Conservatives have, they value guns because most of the conservatives who support guns, grew up around guns, either by practicing hunting or other activity that involves the use of firearms. The opinion Kemp has regarding guns connects to his campaign because in multiple campaign videos he talks about how he will oppose any regulations that affect the second amendment.

Blog #4

Welcome back to my blog! In this episode, we are going to be talking about linkage institutions and the media.

The media is a linkage institution it connects the government to the people by holding them accountable, informing the people on what is going on with the government. The media affects the general public and the way they vote by covering or uncovering certain issues or candidates, the media can also choose how much it covers which affect the way people make their decisions to vote as the way they percept issues and the candidates is not 100% accurate.

The articles that I chose are from CNN  and Breitbart News. According to the Pew Research Center, CNN targets a more liberal audience and Breitbart News targets a more conservative audience.
The current event that I will be looking through these sources is the incident in the synagogue in Pittsburgh, where 11 Jews were killed.

CNN Artcicle
(https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/28/us/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting/index.html )

This article talks about how the police found that the suspect Robert Bowers had a collection of weapons from previous posts on his social media. They also mention that he had been posting anti-semitic comments on the internet. It is also mentioned that the suspect was posting about trump before the incident happened and complained that the Jews were helping the central American caravans. The article then proceeds to talk about how the victims have been identified and that the gunman could face the death penalty. The article is convincing because it presents all the information about the incident such as the actions previous to the shooting, the aftermath, the victims and people who were affected as well as the consequences that the shooter will have to face.


This article seems slightly biased toward the left
as it mentions how the shooter had been posting about trump which basically forms a connection to him. This makes it a little biased as the article does not really tell what the gunman said about Trump, but just that he commented on something, which subconsciously makes people think that Trump had an impact on the shooter's acts. Another thing that could make it a little more biased to the left would be all the details that the article gives about the firearms used as most liberals are against guns which would emphasize in a way how the Republicans might be one of the cause why these incidents happen as they are pro-gun and do not really think could cause this much damage as it did to this Jew community in Pittsburgh. Something to take into consideration is that this article was written a week before the midterm elections which could be a reason why the authors decided to mention Donald Trump and give such many details regarding the guns used and the damage caused as it could be a strategy used to make the Republican side look bad as they usually support guns. One thing that the author could have added to strengthen the argument would be to add what the shooter commented about Trump because we do not actually know if what he supposedly was real or had any connection to trump, which makes it a bit untrustworthy.

Breitbart Article
(https://www.breitbart.com/news/11-slain-in-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-identified/)

This article talks about the incident in a very brief way, as it only states the most known facts such as the casualties, the firearms that were used to commit the crime. Most of it just gives basic information and the rest of the article basically talks about how Donald Trump has been supporting the people that were affected.

The article seems credible and convincing because it has lots of direct quotations from relevant people from the incident. One of the biases is that the article tries to make Donald Trump seem supportive as opposed to the CNN article, which makes him seem as if he had a certain impact on the motivation to commit the incident. Another thing I noticed is that this article does not mention much information about the firearms used, in fact, there is only one sentence that acknowledges that firearms were used and even then, the sentence does not provide much information which defers with the CNN article in which the firearms used are clearly stated and portrays the message that having guns is very negative. This article was written before the midterm elections happened which could have affected the way that it was written as the author probably wanted the positively represent the conservative side since the source lies on the right. It could have also affected the voters who were not sure who to vote for and if this article was the only one they could read then their point of view might have been changed. Something that the source could have added in order to make the source more credible would be to acknowledge the other side and maybe tell how Donald Trump did not have anything to do or impacted the suspect's motivation to commit such crime.

I usually get my news from NBC or USA Today, which are slightly biased toward the left. I believe that sources that are less skewed to either the right or the left are more credible because then they would not have as many biases as a conservative or liberal source would have. I think I make an effort to understand both sides of a given topic, and I usually do not trust the news unless I have done enough research or if I already have knowledge about the topic.