When asked to differentiate myself as either Republican and Democrat, I tried to make a decision based on a myriad of constituents. Ethnic background, gender, income, occupation, education, age, religion, geography, and more. Although these variables constituted my personal ideology, it didn’t necessarily correlate to identifying with either party. I saw this being the case for my family as well, with us agreeing with certain republican standards but not meeting the standards of Republicans. I became curious about how this system works with the country as a whole. Through research and countless hours of reading through casual data, I began seeing stereotypes that I myself believed that were completely wrong.
It’s an interesting and meaningful experience to get your apprehension about a topic completely disproven. For this research paper, this was my entire experience. I like playing devil’s advocate and challenging the things I have been socialized to believe. I believe American society is complacent with the idea of the “popular consensus” as if we all can’t form an opinion ourselves. It’s interesting to think how many people voted in the past elections on the basis of ignorant stereotypical beliefs