YouTube Transcript:
The Influence of POLITICAL EVENTS on IDEOLOGY [AP Gov Review_ Unit 4 Topic 4 (4_4)]

well hey there and welcome back to
himler history now we've been going
through unit four of the AP Government
curriculum and in this video we're going
to talk about how important events can
change or at least affect your political
beliefs so if you're ready to get them
brain cows milked then let's get to it
so in this video here's what we're
trying to do explain how cultural
factors influence political attitudes
and socialization so in the last couple
of videos we've been talking about a
phenomenon called political
socialization which is the process by
which we come to hold our political
beliefs and there are a lot of factors
that go into how we form those beliefs
from our family of origin to what we're
taught in school into what generation we
belong and now we just need to add one
more factor to the pot of political
socialization and once we do then baby
we got a stew going so the factor I'm
talking about is what the AP overlords
call political events and basically what
they mean by that is any event that is
deemed significant in the life of our
nation and depending on how significant
that event is it can have a
disproportionate effect on our political
beliefs so let me give you some examples
and again everything I'm saying here is
a generalization there are of course
exceptions so the silent generation who
if you remember were born roughly in the
1920s up through 19 45 spent their
formative years struggling through the
Great Depression job loss was rampant
and poverty became more and more common
in 1932 their parents elected Franklin D
Roosevelt as president and Roosevelt
expanded the federal government in ways
that would make George Washington poop
his pantaloons but he did this to
alleviate the suffering of Americans and
his new deal program created jobs for
people out of work and created an
economic Safety Net in the form of
Social Security now whether you agree
with those policies or not is not the
point the point is the silent generation
grew up in the midst of unimaginable
hardship and they witnessed the growth
of the federal government in order to
step in and help so that major event
combined with the government's
performance in World War II LED this
generation to trust the government to
intervene for their safety and
well-being and that in turn influenced
how they voted now the Baby Boomers
lived through the Vietnam War and that
trust in government was sarily flushed
down the toilet after the release of the
Pentagon papers which we talked about in
unit 3 it was made clear that the
government had been lying about the
nature and progress of the war in fact
they also witnessed Richard Nixon resign
his presidency because he was involved
in a plot an illegal plot to get
reelected so by the election of 1980
Boomers responded to these events with a
large scale migration from the
Democratic party to the Republican party
and why well we could hardly explain it
better than the man who won the
presidency in that year Ronald Reagan in
responding to the problem of the
economic crisis that had laid the nation
low he said in this present crisis
government is not the solution to our
problem government is the problem so for
all those Boomers who had seen firsthand
the problem the government caused during
the events of Vietnam a candidate who
said such a thing was able to win a
majority of their votes and why because
events influence our voting behavior
then if we think about Millennials the
defining event for that generation was
the terrorist attacks of September 11th
2001 in the months following that event
there was a profound unification
throughout the nation however once the
dust settled Millennials began to
articulate how this event didn't just
come out of nowhere as if we Americans
were just minding our own business and
these terrorists came and attacked us
unprovoked rather Millennials were able
to see that our world is more connected
than ever before and 9/11 was a result
at least partially of American over
intervention in the Middle East for
decades so in response to this event
Millennials have a keen sense of foreign
policy and how America interacts not
just with itself but with the wider
world and so that event led them to vote
for candidates who Champion cooperation
and bridge building with foreign Nations
rather than candidates who ran on a
platform of aggressive foreign policy so
again major events have a way of shaping
how we form our political beliefs and
ultimately how we end up voting now the
last thing I'm going to say in all these
examples that I've given I've shown you
how an event has influenced people to
vote for one party or another but again
those are just examples there were
plenty of people who opposed the New
Deal and plenty who grew more devoted to
the cause of aggressive American
intervention throughout the world after
9/11 so I'm not suggesting that these
political events will necessarily push
folks to vote one way or the other only
that these major events will likely have
a lasting effect on how people are
politically socialized whichever way
they end up voting okay thanks for
watching click right here and gra review
packet which is going to help you get an
A in your class and a five on your exam
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