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Thesis American Studies Cover Page for Examination Assignment The Faculty of Humanities Thesis American Studies Cover page for examination assignment Examination period (please indicate) Summer __x__ Winter _____ Teacher: Anders Bo Rasmussen Title of assignment: A County Divided Against Itself – How PolitiCs Polarized Sauk County Min./Max. number of characters: Number of characters in assignment1: 60-80 standard pages, exCluding Cover page, 180.115 table of Contents, abstract, notes, and bibliography and appendiCes (1 norm page = 2400 characters incl. blank spaCes) Please notiCe that in case your assignment does not meet the minimum/maximum requirements stipulated in the curriculum your assignment will be dismissed and you will have used up one examination attempt. (Please Yes, my assignment may in anonymized form be published on BlackBoard for mark) future students in this course __x__ Solemn declaration I hereby deClare that I have drawn up the assignment single-handed and independently. All quotes are marked as such and duly referenced. The full assignment or parts thereof have not been handed in as full or partial fulfilment of examination requirements in any other courses. Read more here: http://www.sdu.dk/en/Information_til/Studerende_ved_SDU/Eksamen.aspx Handed in by (indiCate [Examination number/Birthdate and name]): 462244 / 17 September 1990 / Jens Baisgaard Haugaard Simonsen. 1 CharaCters are Counted from the first CharaCter in the introduCtion until and including the last Character in the Conclusion. Footnotes are included. Charts are counted with theirs characters. The following is excluded from the total count: abstract, table of Contents, bibliography, list of referenCes, appendix. For more information, see the examination regulations of the course in the curriculum. A County Divided Against Itself – How Politics Polarized Sauk County “We are slow to realize that democracy is a life, and involves continual struggle.” - Robert M. La Follette, governor of Wisconsin 1901-1906. Jens Baisgaard Master Thesis Summer 2020 Center for American Studies, University of Sourthern Denmark Master Thesis Jens Baisgaard Summer 2020 Abstract Through ethnographic fieldwork consisting of qualitative semi-structured interviews and the use of grounded theory this thesis examines which factors are causing the polarization between Democrats and Republicans in Sauk County, Wisconsin. The findings from this microlevel investigation are then used to explain the wider implications of polarization in the American society anno 2020. By analyzing the interviews and comparing the findings to existing research on the topic of political polarization, this thesis finds that not only Sauk County, but the whole of the United States, have become more polarized over moral and cultural issues such as abortion, gun control, universal health care, and climate change. Even homosexuality and LGBTQ rights are continuing to cause polarization among Democrats and Republicans despite both groups being increasingly more accepting. This conclusion is reached as the fieldwork conducted in Sauk County is consistent with the existing research and surveys on polarization in the United States. Consequently, this thesis concludes that the current polarization in Sauk County, as well as in the United States, emanates from the culture wars in the seventies. Thus, polarization should be viewed as a continuation that has persisted for decades and not as a new phenomenon, but rather as a conflict between two opposing views of America that has been successfully reignited by President Trump. Additionally, by applying grounded theory, this thesis shows how backlashes to social progress are an integral part of American history and so this thesis constructs the claim that Joe Biden, who is likely to be the Democratic candidate for the presidency, will win the election in November, and that the election result is likely to be followed by protests and demands for a recount. Ultimately, and returning to the research question, this thesis argues that the current polarization in Sauk County, as well as in the United States, between Democrats and Republicans should be seen as the culmination of the culture wars before a transitional period towards a new consensus on moral and cultural issues in the United States. 1 Master Thesis Jens Baisgaard Summer 2020 The scope of this thesis is Sauk County - a swing county that shifts between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party at presidential elections. In the last 11 presidential elections, the Democratic Party has won six times in Sauk County while the Republican Party has won five times. Furthermore, Sauk County is named as one of the ten most important counties in the 2020 election due to the close presidential election in 2016, when Donald Trump won by just 109 votes against the Democratic candidate Hilary Clinton. This was the fourth election in a row where the winner in Sauk County would end up as the next president. And in eight of the previous 11 presidential elections, Sauk County has chosen the eventual winner of the election. Thus, Sauk County is a bellwether for which way American politics are moving. This makes it particularly important to examine what factors are at play in Sauk County as it serves as an American microcosmos. To answer what factors are causing the polarization in Sauk County, this thesis is utilizing ethnographic fieldwork consisting of ten interviews that were conducted from February 22nd and until March 7th 2020 among Democrats and Republicans living in the county. The semi-structured interviews were conducted using questionnaires with a fixed wording in order to reduce the interview bias as much as possible, though even a fixed wording cannot completely leave out any risk of bias. The questionnaires contained questions regarding specific issues that has traditionally been seen as being very polarizing – for example the interviewees were asked about their opinion on abortion and gun control. The answers were then compared to recent surveys from Pew Research Center on these issues. The interviewees were also asked more open questions regarding what issues they felt concerned them as well as what values they deemed to be of particular importance. The key polarizing factors were identified by analyzing the interviews, and subsequently the thesis was subdivided into categories that is being used to elaborate on these polarizing factors. This thesis examines abortion, homosexuality, gun control, climate change, universal health care, President Trump and political opponents, media habits, and rural-urban voting behavior. Subsequently, these 2 Master Thesis Jens Baisgaard Summer 2020 factors help explain why and how political polarization has been in an upward trend in recent decades, culminating with the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016. Key words: polarization, urban, rural, Trump, culture war, Wisconsin, Democratic, Republican, abortion, gun control. 3 Master Thesis Jens Baisgaard Summer 2020 Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................................ 5 Research Question .............................................................................................................................................................. 6 Concept Clarification ......................................................................................................................................................... 7 Polarization ..................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Urban ............................................................................................................................................................................... 9 Rural ................................................................................................................................................................................ 9 Literature Review ............................................................................................................................................................. 10 The Urban–Rural Gulf in American Political Behavior (2020) .................................................................................... 11 The Politics of Resentment – Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker (2016) ....................... 11 Strangers in Their Own Land – Anger and Mourning on the American Right (2016) .................................................. 13 Fear and Loathing across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization (2015) ................................................ 16 Something Happened – A Political and Cultural Overview of the Seventies (2006) .................................................... 17 Method ............................................................................................................................................................................... 18 Discussion .......................................................................................................................................................................... 26 Description of interviewees ..........................................................................................................................................
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