Public Opinion and Political Influence

Carllene Brooks
May 11, 2016
Professor Murdaco
Politics


Task: Summarize Lecture


        In this week's lecture, we were asked to look at and summarize two different articles relating to public opinion and political influence. In both Sheldon Wolin's " Inverted Totalitarianism" and in Arthur Schlesinger's " The Politics of Hope" and "Liberalism in America" we see the common idea on how the government has evolved in recent decades as well as how we perceive the idea of inverted totalitarianism.
       To begin with, the term Inverted Totalitarianism was coined by Wolin and it is commonly used to describe the emerging form of government of the United States. According to Wolin he believes that there are 3 main points in which inverted totalitarianism is the inverted form of classical totalitarianism. To summarize the main idea of these three points; it seems that he derives his ideas from prior experiences that have occurred within the history of America. His main goal is to shed light on how we have evolved from hard times; for example Wolin references Nazi Germany and the era when JFK was in office. Wolin's coined term aims for the mass of the populace to be in a persistent state of political apathy. According to www.commondreams.org, inverted totalitarianism pays outward featly to the facade of electoral politics, the Constitution, civil liberties, and freedom of the press. In my opinion, I believe that this statement means that with this term it will help people and possibly the public to better understand the political world. To end on the thoughts of Wolin, I have come across an interview that was conducted with him last year. In this interview he states that " Inverted Totalitarianism constantly powers upwards. It is the antithesis of constitutional power. It is designed to create instability to keep a citizenry off balance and passive. " This means that by having this system of totalitarianism , it will further change the things are being run and how decisions are being made.
     Meanwhile in Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr's Politics of Hope, he seems to elaborate on some of Kennedy's ideas. The one point I would like to emphasize is a statement that he made in his book. He mentions that " Liberal thinkers should learn from history and look to the future." This is a very powerful statement because it means that we shouldn't base our knowledge and ideas from what we learn in the present day. Out history is what makes us who we are as well as shows us how the world and how the political views have drastically changed throughout our time. By looking into the future we can see that the changes and new innovations that are brought our way can truly make a difference in the political world.