The History of Voting
Throughout the history of the U.S., voting has been a very important part of the way that our country is run, because voting has been very important so then has been public opinion. The founding fathers were afraid of the opinions of a misinformed or ignorant public. Due to this fear they set up checks on public opinion such as the Electoral College. In this way it shows that in the 1700s as in the present that public opinion is very important and confusing. The authors Walter Lippmann, V.O. Key, Jr., George Gallup, James Prothro, and Charles Grigg all believe that public opinion is very important for the effect it as on the government. In Walter Lippmann's article "The Pseudo-Environment of Public Opinion" Lippmann believes that public opinion is very important because it can negatively sway how the government acts. He believes that public opinion can be swayed all too easily by the passions. In addition to that, Lippmann also believes that the public's perception of the world is not accurate in relation to the way that the world really is. Lippmann believes that the general public is ignorant so that for public opinion to be valid the public would have to be better educated. This article indicates that even if p
Public opinion: The country's fathers feared it, authors argue about it, pollsters take polls on it, but what does this all mean? President Clinton recognizes the importance of public opinion because he takes a poll before he goes about doing anything. Regardless of weather or not one believes that the leaders of our country should listen to it, public opinion always has been and will continue to be very important. Walter Lippmann, V.O. Key, Jr., George Gallup, James Prothro, and Charles Grigg, some of these authors may not agree on what our leaders should do about public opinion but they all agree that public opinion is important. James Prothro and Charles Grigg co-wrote an article entitled "What do Americans Really Believe?." This article goes along the same general lines of the article written by George Gallup in respect to how the leaders should listen to the public. Prothro and Grigg both believe, as does Gallup that public opinion is very important and that the leaders of this country should listen to the voice of the people. One very important way that Prothro and Grigg's article differs from Gallup's article is that they believe it is hard to gauge public opinion. This leads to Prothro and Grigg's main point: the masses can agree with the general, or abstract
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Approximate Word count = 865
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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