Questions We Can Help You To Answer

Paper instructions:

This is an unusual time in American politics, and this is an unusual paper assignment. Your task is to use the readings for the course–especially those by Max Weber and by Karl Marx–to analyze the bases of support for Donald Trump’s election.
To get your “data,” you should assemble five or more articles from the sources specified below that provide evidence about the bases of support for (and perhaps opposition to) Trump. Since some of you know a lot about American politics and others know relatively little, you should rely on the specific evidence in the articles you collect, and not on your opinions or what you think you know. The goal is dispassionate sociological analysis, not advocacy or opinion.
The only sources you may use are:
The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/  (their series “The Upshot” sometimes has valuable data analysis)
The Washington Post : https://www.washingtonpost.com/ Pew Research Center: http://www.pewresearch.org/ You should search all of these web sites to select 5-10 articles or reports that give you a picture of
Trump’s base of support, his appeal, or the issues that were important to his election. If sources suggest conflicting arguments, that’s OK, as long as you make clear that there is debate about the evidence. Look at many articles to find good ones that really give you information about why Trump had enough support to win 46% of the vote and a majority of the Electoral College. You are looking for “objective” data and analysis, not just someone’s opinion.

You must analyze how Marx’s arguments might explain Trump’s support: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party”; Marx, “The
Coming Upheaval”; and selections from The German Ideology
and how Weber’s arguments might explain Trump’s support:
Max Weber, “The Distribution of Power Within the Political Community: Class, Status, Party.”