Kevin Nugra
So, we proceeded to look for hope as a mode of existence.
From Hope, Maine to Hope, Alaska, we described a state that appeared to be a country divided, hostile and anxious against its fate as the election cycle escalated into an unforgiving season. There was a litany of challenges which ranged from the economic to existentialism.
In the poll conducted by USA University, a majority of 2 and 1/2 said the nation is headed in the wrong track. 49% of the likely voters self identified as voters planning to vote mostly base on what the candidate of their choice would do if elected. Not too far behind, 41% of the voters explain their choice based on what they regard as disastrous, if voted for by the other candidate.
A sense of alarm seems to be the sentiment that most unites us: the Anxious States of America:
However, in some of the most basic aspects, the American people remain optimistic towards the future of their country and the nation’s capacity to overcome existing and potential challenges. About 81 % compared with 13 % of respondents say they have hope for the future of the country, a view that is still uniform across gender, racial, or political affiliations.
The survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted Aug. 25 to 28 by landline and cellphone has a sampling error of plus or minus 3. 1 percentage points.
What gives us hope? Tied at the top of the list is ‘the American spirit’, or a vague notion and the U. S. Constitution which is as practical as they come and is 237 years old.
However, it is much easier to agree on essentials about hopelessness that we feel in our everyday ambience. Respondents have generated the list with politicians topping those among Democrats, Republicans and independents. Right behind that in most schools, as the last major concern, respondents identified increasing polarization and lack of respect for others’ opinions.
‘The divisiveness is a disaster,’ said Kim Larson, 54 an accountant from Hyde Park, Utah. The political independent is one of the samples of the study. “The more people can’t even talk to each other and our friends are being not friends any more and horrible social media posts and texts … the more that happens the worse the country goes.”
Official population: 113. Fact check? Maybe not
In Hope, Alaska climate change and the resultant rising temperatures of the coastal waters pose a risk to the fishing beds of salmon. On the other side of the country, tensions rise between the latecomers and old timers in Hope, Maine after the few first kayakers started arriving en masse during the pandemic. Michigan’s two Hope Townships are situated in one of the presidential battleground states, filled with countless appeals to vote that caused breakdown of family unity. Hope, New Mexico is nothing more than a nagging blip on the map with its documented population of only 113 people − if one is to believe that is actually true.
“We are something like a family here, are we not?” asked Bill Fletcher, the 85-year-old mayor of the town, “we are not related in any way but it is like a family here, you hurt one of us and we all sting.”
There is Hope, Arkansas that has recently been focusing on the renewal of downtown but still facing such issues as the decrease of population and the lack of motivation to vote. Bill Clinton again put spotlight on this city and won the White House campaigning about his native place in ‘A place called Hope’, though to be more accurate he also bullied George H. W. Bush during the campaigning process.
It was that convention video from 1992, or over three decades in the past. In 2008, the campaign slogans for Barack Obama were “hope and change” however Obama also ran negative adverts against his opponent John McCain. Obama’s iconic campaign poster displayed that single word: They were much larger and a bit more varied than they are today; sadly, they no longer included the optimistic abbreviation “HOPE. ”
That was an inaccurate perception that was not in tune with the overall message propagated by this year’s political campaign. Republican nominee Donald Trump said on Tuesday that if he loses the elections, the candidate would be faced with a devastating depression and a new world war. Rest assured that violent crime rate and human influx would endanger the public and the existence of the nation.
Thus the former president has stated, “The only thing behind you and the obliteration is me.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s Democratic rival Kamala Harris speaks politics of joy at a higher rate than Biden when he was still vying for the presidency, and after he surrendered but before his Vice, entered the mix. He had said that Trump’s victory could lead to the destruction of democracy. Harris’ attitude towards the former president is rarely apocalyptic; more often it is mocking.
However she labels Trump as an aspiring dictator who if elected in the country will remove reproductive and among other freedoms.
Harris voters are a tick more likely to vote out of fear of Trump rather than having hope about her: 47% 45%. It is worth mentioning that hope played a considerably lesser role in the Biden supporters’ decision to vote for him, Although in a USA TODAY survey conducted in June, 27% of the respondents voting for Biden selected hope for him as their primary reason to do so; 66% selected their fear of Trump as the reason to vote for Biden.
Meanwhile, in the same August poll, 33% said the Biden-Harris ticket inspired their vote out of fear of Harris while 58% said the same about Trump.
It is easy to get caught up in the extremity of those emotions − that any rational, civil person could not support the other team − which makes it difficult to find areas of compromise, or moments where that exists.
Queried Melissa Bennett, a 54-year-old office manager from Pasco Washington regarding the election, “I’m terrified and sickened at the thought of what is going to happen when the other candidate kicks him out.” A Republican, she is supporting Trump here. ”Getting back to fear … Translation: The security of our country is in (her) hands as the commander in chief.”
Shandee Gordon, 45, principal of an elementry school in Morrilton, Arkansas is an Independent who supports Harris.
‘Well, I am expecting that she is going to do what she says she is going to do,” she said. “With him he is just a horrible, horrible person doing bad things he is a criminal I don’t know why anyone votes for him Why?”
Inspirational? This for Dems and this for GOP Obama and Reagan accordingly
Taking the last few years into account, the American people cannot be wrong about their concerns for the future.
One of the deadliness pandemic in a century which caused the death of over one million people in the United States. The all-out assault on America’s institutions, a coup to replace the results of an election to overturn the will of the people, and an attack on the U. S. Capitol while the Electoral College votes were being counted. The worst invasion in Europe since the Second World War is still going on with Russia invading Ukraine.
“Events in the world matter in that they kind of prime people to be anxious about certain things,” said Shana Kushner Gadarian, a political scientist at Syracuse University and co-author of “Anxious Politics: Democratic Citizenship in a Threatening World, 10.
“But politicians do it and through their ads and through talking to people and their speeches they really focus a lot on certain issues,” she said, “because they feel, or they gather from polls, that it is profitable for their party for people to be worried about such things.”
She admitted that there is nothing like fear in politics and it is well known to shift voters’ attitudes but findings show that nothing beats hope in leading people to cast their votes.
The greatest Presidents in the history of America set the tones of hope in situations much worse than these. In his first inaugural speech in 1861 when the Civil war was on a horizon, President Abraham Lincoln had requested Americans to let the better angels of nature rise within them. It was in his first inaugural speech during the great depression that Franklin D. Roosevelt encouraged the American nation saying, and I quote, “The only thing we have to fear is fear”.
Close to the nine out of ten adult Americans noted that there is or has been a president within their lifetime that they admired.
To this, there are responses, however simplistic and more to the point, there is a stark contrast between Republicans and Democrats. Reagan is invoked to a far greater degree by self-described Republicans than by self-described Democrats, 48 percent as against 3 percent. Trump also is the second most believed among G.O.P., but here the figure is only 18%.
Democratic-party-identifying political participants are more likely to nominate Barack Obama, 56%, than are Republicans, 4%. Other interesting data are that among Democrats John F. Kennedy is placed the second with 17%. (If people were alive when JFK was killed in 1963 they would be 60 or above today.)
The earlier poll of 1,000 registered voters by landline and cellphone June 28-30 has a 3. 1-point margin of error.
According to their perception of the American culture and way of life, they have claims that hope comes from their family, faith and friends. For the country, besides the “American spirit” and the Constitution they list youth as a resource. For the forces feeding hopelessness, aside from the state of today’s politics, they refer to world affairs.
This would mean that candidates and their campaigns do have the potential to make American citizens as hopeful as they can be, or as hopeless as they may want them to be.
If that is correct, then the poll taken just before the Fourth of July-when Biden was still the presumptive Democratic nominee-84% of Democrats polled said they had hope; a figure that rose nine points to 93%, according to the same poll conducted two months later, after Harris became the nominee.
For Republicans, it was the opposite. Cette situation était vraie pour les républicains. In late June 82% considered the future of the country as optimistic and in late August the percentage dropped to 72%. On several occasions that year, Trump was attacked but he survived an assassination attempt. Also accepted by the media and the public was that he had to go up against a more difficult election with Harris compared to Biden.
“Well, I think the country has problems; I think the world has problems,” says Jane Crosson, 67, a retired pediatric cardiologist from Durham, North Carolina. A Democrat, she supports Harris. “But I don’t think the problems are insurmountable. I think that there’s a lot of good things happening, and we can move forward if we can just get past this craziness.”
It has a definite allure,” says Jeannine Jabaay, 47. That would be Hope, Alaska, which is just about the end of the road of the continental United States. Her family owns and operates the Dirty Skillet Restaurant and the Bear Creek Lodge Cabins there.
“Hope has a weird way of drawing you in,” she says. “Nobody ends up in Hope by accident. It has to be intentional.”
John Tyson
